THIRTY TWO, sinking ship
❀ ✿ ❀ ✿
"YOU'D THINK HE'D RUN OUT OF ROCKS," Percy quipped.
Aster scowled at him from under his arm. "Not the time, Seaweed Brain."
"Right."
"Swim for it!" Grover said.
He and Clarisse plunged into the surf. Annabeth hung on to Clarisse's neck and tried to paddle with one hand, the wet Fleece weighing her down. Aster tried to swim on her own, but her arms and legs were still weak from the stunt she pulled with Annabeth, so she sank faster than she could swim. She tried to urge Percy along, but he seemed to be frozen in place.
Because the monster's attention wasn't on the Fleece.
"You, young cyclops!" Polyphemus roared. "Traitor to your kind!"
Tyson froze.
"Don't listen to him!" Percy pleaded. "Come on!"
He pulled Tyson's arm, but he didn't budge. He turned and faced the older cyclops. "I am not a traitor."
"You serve mortals!" Polyphemus shouted. "Thieving humans!"
Polyphemus threw his first boulder. Tyson swatted it aside with his fist.
"Not a traitor," Tyson said. "And you are not my kind."
"Death, or victory!" Polyphemus charged into the surf, but his foot was still wounded. He immediately stumbled and fell on his face. That would've been funny, except he started to get up again, spitting salt water and growling.
"Percy! Aster!" Clarisse yelled. "Come on!"
They were almost to the ship with the Fleece. Aster and Percy were close, all things considered, and with his powers, they could make it in no time. Aster glanced at him, and she saw a glint in his eyes, like he was considering taking on the cyclops himself to save the rest of them.
"Don't even think about it," she said.
Percy looked down at her, brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I know you, Percy. If you are going to pull more of that self-sacrificing bullshit, I will kill you."
"Aster–"
But Tyson had just stepped forward in the surf, pulling both of their attentions.
"Go," he said. "I will hold Big Ugly."
"No!" Percy exclaimed. "He'll kill you. We'll fight him together."
"Together," Tyson agreed.
"Get to the ship, Aster," Percy said, drawing his sword. She could feel a wave supporting her now, carrying her away from the action—no doubt the work of Percy.
"No way, Seaweed Brain," Aster said, struggling against the new current. "If you fight, I fight. Remember?"
Percy glared at her as she drew a few throwing knives from her ears, staring back at him with just as much intensity. Finally, he relented.
"Fine," Percy said, "but at the first sign of danger, I'm sending you to the ship, and you're going to go. Are we clear?"
Aster saluted him with two fingers. "Aye aye, Captain."
"You're the most stubborn person I've ever met, Flower Power."
"Aww, stop it Barnacle Boy. You'll make me blush."
Polyphemus advanced carefully, limping worse than ever. But there was nothing wrong with his throwing arm. He chucked his second boulder. Percy and Aster dove to avoid it, but they still would've been squashed if Tyson's fist hadn't blasted the rock to rubble. Aster could feel the ocean helping her along like a crutch, and it reminded her of how the earth had helped her countless times throughout her life. But this time it was Percy helping her.
He then willed the sea to rise. Aster watched in awe as a twenty-foot wave surged up, lifting Percy on its crest. He rode toward the cyclops and kicked him in the eye, leaping over his head as the water blasted him onto the beach. Aster rapidly swam towards them, as did Tyson.
"Destroy you!" Polyphemus spluttered. "Fleece stealer!"
"You stole the Fleece!" Percy yelled. "You've been using it to lure satyrs to their deaths!"
"So? Satyrs good eating!"
"The Fleece should be used to heal! It belongs to the children of the gods!"
"I am a child of the gods!" Polyphemus swiped at Percy, but he sidestepped. "Father Poseidon, curse this thief!"
Aster made it to the beach, sneaking around Polyphemus's other side. She saw Percy's eyes flick up for a split second, registering where she was. She could feel some of her strength returning, being closer to the foliage just beyond the beach. She could feel the presence of the roots under the sand, coming to her as she called them.
"Poseidon won't curse me," Percy said, backing up as the cyclops grabbed air. "I'm his son, too. He won't play favorites."
Polyphemus roared. He ripped an olive tree out of the side of the cliff and smashed it where Percy had been standing a moment before. "Humans not the same! Nasty, tricky, lying!"
"I know he did not just kill an innocent tree," Aster muttered under her breath.
Grover was helping Annabeth aboard the ship. Clarisse was waving frantically at them, telling them to come on.
Tyson worked his way around Polyphemus, trying to get behind him.
"Young one!" the older cyclops called. "Where are you? Help me!"
Tyson stopped.
"You weren't raised right!" Polyphemus wailed, shaking his olive tree club. "Poor orphaned brother! Help me!"
None of them moved. The only thing Aster could hear was the ocean and her own heartbeat. She felt the roots reach her and tug gently on her ankles, urging her to move towards Tyson, as if they knew he needed help. Aster silently willed some of them to go towards Polyphemus and lie in wait.
Tyson stepped forward, raising his hands defensively. "Don't fight, cyclops brother. Put down the–"
Polyphemus spun toward his voice.
"Tyson!" Aster shouted.
But the tree didn't go towards Tyson; it was hurtling straight towards Aster. Everything happened so fast that Aster had no time to react. She braced herself for the impact and her death. But it never came. As the tree hurtled toward her, Tyson dove in front of her, taking the hit from the tree so that Aster didn't have to. He laid sprawled out in front of her a few feet away, in a trench that the impact must have made in the sand, unmoving. Aster's breath caught in her throat as Polyphemus charged after him.
Percy shouted, "No!" and lunged forward with Riptide.
"Blaaaaah! " Polyphemus bleated just like his sheep, and swung at him with the tree.
Aster managed to reach Tyson, collapsing beside him. She could feel his heartbeat, and searched for his life force like she did with Annabeth; it was still there, and it was steady. Aster let out a sigh of relief when Tyson blinked his big eye up at her, and for once, she wasn't terrified to be near him.
Tyson had saved her life, even after how she had treated him.
Aster glanced up to see Percy still dueling with Polyphemus, but he was bleeding. Badly. His movements were sluggish, and she knew he must have been exhausted after all of this fighting.
Polyphemus swung the tree again, but this time Percy was ready. He grabbed a branch as it passed, and was jerked skyward as the cyclops lifted him into the air. At the top of the arc he let go and fell straight against the giant's face—landing with both feet on his already damaged eye.
Polyphemus yowled in pain, just a few feet away. Tyson tackled him, pulling him down. Percy landed next to them—sword in hand, within striking distance of the monster's heart. But when his and Tyson's eyes locked, he relented.
"Let him go," Percy said, looking to Aster. "Can you walk?"
Aster nodded, but Polyphemus's giant hand wrapped around her legs, trying to pull her towards him in what seemed like a last-ditch effort to get revenge on whoever had tried to blind him—again. She struggled against his grip, but took her biggest throwing knife and aimed it with all of her strength towards the monster's eye. She heard the blade sink into the already-damaged organ, and the Cyclopes cried out in pain as he let her go. Roots clamped over him, holding the monster in place as she ran after Percy and Tyson, towards the surf.
"I will smash you!" Polyphemus yelled, struggling against the roots. His enormous hands cupped over his eye, blood seeping between his fingers.
The three of them plunged into the waves. Aster could feel the sea morph around her again in sort of a gentle embrace, but when she glanced over to Percy, he looked surprised.
"Where are you?" Polyphemus screamed. He picked up his tree club and threw it into the water. It splashed off to their right.
Percy summoned up a current to carry them, and they started gaining speed. Aster was beginning to think they might make it to the ship relatively unharmed, when Clarisse shouted from the deck, "Yeah, Jackson! In your face, cyclops!"
Shut up, Aster wanted to yell. Had no one learned their lesson after Odysseus?
"Rarrr! " Polyphemus picked up a boulder. He threw it toward the sound of Clarisse's voice, but it fell short, narrowly missing Tyson, Percy, and Aster.
"Yeah, yeah!" Clarisse taunted. "You throw like a wimp! Teach you to try marrying me, you idiot!"
"Clarisse!" Percy yelled. "Shut up!"
Too late. Polyphemus threw another boulder, and this time Aster watched helplessly as it sailed over their heads and crashed through the hull of the Queen Anne's Revenge.
You wouldn't believe how fast a ship can sink. The Queen Anne's Revenge creaked and groaned and listed forward like it was going down a playground slide.
Aster cursed at the sight of the ship's masts already going under.
"Dive!" Percy told Tyson. He grabbed Aster's shoulders and held tight, plunging them both underwater. He made sure to give her a bubble to breathe in.
But Grover, Clarisse, and Annabeth were sinking fast, trying to swim, without luck, in the bubbly trail of the ship's wreckage.
While the ship was sinking, it acted like a sinkhole, pulling down everything around it. Clarisse was a strong swimmer, but even she wasn't making any progress. Grover frantically kicked with his hooves. Annabeth was hanging on to the Fleece, which flashed in the water like a wave of new pennies.
Percy and Aster frantically swam toward them, but Aster had a sickly feeling that they might not make it in time, even with Percy's abilities. Even worse, pieces of timber were swirling around them; none of Percy's power with water would help if he got whacked on the head by a beam.
It was then that Aster saw shapes shimmering in the darkness below. Her stomach dropped, thinking that she would have rather had Polyphemus kill her than get torn apart by sharks, but then she recognized the figures—three horses with fish tails, galloping upward faster than dolphins. Rainbow and his friends glanced in their direction, looking at Percy as he nodded.
They whisked into the wreckage, and a moment later burst upward in a cloud of bubbles—Rainbow happy to be reunited with Tyson, Grover clinging to the neck of one, Annabeth and Clarisse on another, the fourth swimming rapidly towards Aster and Percy. He allowed them to grab hold of his mane, and the rest did the same.
They broke the surface of the water and raced away from Polyphemus's island. Behind them, Aster could hear the cyclops roaring in triumph, "I did it! I finally sank Nobody!"
Aster hoped he never found out he was wrong.
They skimmed across the sea as the island shrank to a dot and then disappeared.
Aster could feel her strength and consciousness fleeting as she glanced back at Percy.
"How..." she muttered in exhaustion. "Why..."
Aster slumped against the neck of the hippocampus and instantly fell asleep, forgetting the question that had been on her tongue moments before.
– ❀ –
IN HER DREAM, ASTER was back on Half-Blood Hill. The only way she knew it wasn't real was for the fact that Thalia's pine tree was still alive—and thriving, if the bright green needles were any indication.
"Hello little demigod," the familiar voice said from under her feet. "Back so soon?"
Aster's heart thumped loudly in her chest, but she refused to let this thing know she was afraid. Her hands clenched into fists at her side, and she half-wished she could fight whatever it was, even if it was only in her dream.
"Not by choice," Aster said. "I don't even know if you're real or a figment of my imagination."
The earth rumbled as the voice laughed, and Aster's skin crawled.
"I am very much real, Aster Reed." Aster swallowed nervously at the use of her full name. "Look at you, acting as if you have no fear. You cannot be defiant in the face of destruction, godling."
Aster's brow furrowed. "What do you mean? You are destruction? That doesn't make any sense. That's a verb, not a noun."
"Wrong again, demigod. Destruction is not merely an action, but rather a state of being. Just as all other things are: fear, happiness, disgust... life." Aster felt the blood drain from her face as the voice continued, sounding smug. "That is right, Aster Reed, I know what occurred just minutes ago. Something that should not be possible, but yet... you achieved it. We are connected, you and I. One cannot exist without the other."
Aster stomped down the fear in her throat. "Speaking in riddles again? I thought immortals were past this."
"Oh, I am not just immortal, godling. I am everything and nothing, and soon you will see just how deadly your power runs."
Taking a deep breath, Aster tried to press her luck, here in the safety of her dream. "Do you know what my power is? Do you know how I did... what I did on the island?"
"Of course I do. We are kin, of sorts. Two sides of the same coin. The power you hold is ancient—older than the gods, older than the titans, even Kronos." The voice paused, as if it was about to give away too much. "We are the same, godling. Cut from the same cloth."
"I am nothing like you," Aster spat. "You want to destroy my home, the people I love. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."
"But don't you?" The voice chuckled, and a chill made its way up Aster's spine. "What about the son of Hermes? Do you not wish to see him burn? Don't you wish to see him suffer a fate worse than any one of your companions could even dream of? You wish to see him destroyed, even if you claim it not to be of your nature. Do you not also wish to see justice to who framed your father? Not just normal justice, no, but vengeance.
"Have you not wondered where all of that anger comes from, how you are different from those who share your blood? Children of Demeter are meant to be good, to be pure, to be at peace, and yet... you are not. You have recognized that in yourself. I can tell you why."
Aster stilled, her heart nearly stopping. How did this entity know so much about her? It knew her thoughts, her feelings—almost like it was in her head. Maybe it was right; they were connected, but only in a way that was beneficial for the voice.
Either way, she had long wondered why she was so angry, why she had so much dangerous energy built up inside of her. She tried to keep it under wraps, but sometimes... things slip through the cracks. As Aster had learned that day, her power was like no other; she had never heard of a demigod with the ability to control life and death. They were forces that were untouchable, forces that not even the gods could control. But somehow, Aster could.
It terrified her.
"How?" was all Aster asked, the curiosity getting the better of her.
"If you join me, I can show you all you can do. Why you have this power in you, why you can do what you can do. You only need to join me, godling, and it will be done."
"What do you mean, 'join you'?" Aster asked, cautiously.
"Aid me in my destruction of Olympus."
Aster's blood ran cold. "Never."
A moment of hesitation, and then—"So be it." The voice sounded colder now, angrier. "Then it is your choice, demigod, that will bring destruction upon everything that you love, everything you hold dear."
Camp Half-Blood behind her burned, starting with Thalia's tree. Aster could do nothing to stop the fire and destruction before everything was gone, reduced to ashes.