I left on the note of turning back and seeing them stand closely together awkwardly. I didn't know why but I think I understood what Frank was feeling when we left them up there. I had to shake it off, but even then as we walked down the stairs to the sick bay the thought was still in the back of my mind.
Something was definitely up.
Percy and Jason had to lie down. I made them regularly drink water because staying hydrated was the most important thing for them to do. The commotion on the deck ruined the idea of a swift recovery. We ran (or stumbled) up the stairs and our eyes raced to see what was happening. Percy, despite being tired, came to a conclusion before the rest of us.
"What's going— Gah! Shrimpzilla!"
Frank ran to Hazel's side. She was clutching the rigging but she gestured that she was all right. The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned.
Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard. Unfortunately Piper slammed into me and we all almost went overboard.
"How did it get so close?" Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields. Jason and Piper helped each other up whilst I just grabbed onto the side of the ship and tried to hang on.
"I don't know!" Hedge snarled.
"I'm stupid!" I heard Leo scold to himself. "Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!" The ship tilted farther to starboard, making me lean almost off the entire deck. When we regulated again I drunkenly walked towards where we started.
"Sonar?" Hedge demanded. "Pan's pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn't been staring into Hazel's eyes, holding hands for so long—"
"What?" Frank yelped as I bumped into Percy.
"It wasn't like that!" Hazel protested.
"It doesn't matter!" Piper said. "Jason, can you call some lightning?"
Jason struggled to his feet. "I—" He only managed to shake his head.
"He isn't rested enough!" I shouted.
"Percy!" Annabeth said. "Can you talk to that thing? Do you know what it is?" The son of the sea god shook his head, clearly mystified.
"Maybe it's just curious about the ship. Maybe—" The monster's tendrils lashed across the deck and one slammed Percy in the chest and sent him crashing down the steps, barely avoiding me. Another wrapped around Piper's legs and dragged her, screaming, toward the rail. Dozens more tendrils curled around the masts, encircling the crossbows and ripping down the rigging.
"Nose-hair attack!" Hedge snatched up his bat and leaped into action; but his hits just bounced harmlessly off the tendrils. Jason drew his sword. He tried to free Piper, but he was still weak. His gold blade cut through the tendrils with no problem, but faster than he could sever them, more took their place. Annabeth unsheathed her dagger. She ran through the forest of tentacles, dodging and stabbing at whatever target she could find. Frank pulled out his bow. He fired over the side at the creature's body, lodging arrows in the chinks of its shell; but that only seemed to annoy the monster. Everyone had their weapons to fight but I had to stand helplessly in the doorway, hearing Percy's groans of pain from a few meters behind me.
The mast creaked like it might snap off.
"Y/N!" Leo yelled. "That box! Open it!"
I hesitated, staring around at my feet then saw the box he meant.
"Open it!" Leo yelled again. "Coach, take the wheel! Turn us toward the monster, or we'll capsize." Hedge danced through the tentacles with his nimble goat hooves, smashing away with gusto. He bounded toward the helm and took the controls.
"Hope you got a plan!" he shouted.
"A bad one." Leo raced toward the mast. The monster pushed against the Argo II. The deck lurched to forty-five degrees. Despite everyone's efforts, the tentacles were just too numerous to fight. They seemed able to elongate as much as they wanted. Soon they'd have the Argo II completely entangled.
"Frank!" Leo called as he ran toward me. "Buy us some time! Can you turn into a shark or something?"
Frank glanced over, scowling; and in that moment a tentacle slammed into the big guy, knocking him overboard. Hazel screamed, running to the edge. As she leaned over to find Frank, her balance was lost and she dived right after him.
I almost dropped the vials I had been holding. Leo caught them. Each was the size of an apple, and the liquid inside glowed poisonous green.
"Come on!" He handed me one of the vials. "We can kill the monster— and save Frank!"
Getting to the port rail was more like rock climbing than walking, but finally we made it.
"What is this stuff?" I gasped, cradling my glass vial. It felt warm through the glass in the palm of my hand.
"Greek fire!" Leo replied.
"Are you crazy? If these break, we'll burn the whole ship!" Greek fire was insane. I had researched it when I did my medical unit on burns.
"Its mouth!" Leo said. "Just chuck it down its—" Suddenly Leo was crushed against me, and the world turned sideways. We were wrapped in a tentacle together. Our bodies were pressed so close that my breathing was compressed. Leo's arms were free, but it was all he could do to keep hold of his Greek fire vial. My arms were pinned against me and I tried with all I could to secure the vial and ensure it didn't break. If it broke, we were screwed.
We rose ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet above the monster. I could see our friends still trying to defend the ship.
"Leo," I gasped, "I can't—my arms—"
"Y/N," he said. "Do you trust me?"
"No!" I shook my head with as much emphasis as I could.
"Me neither," Leo admitted. "When this thing drops us, hold your breath. Whatever you do, try to chuck your vial as far away from the ship as possible."
"Why—why would it drop us?" I said, my voice slathered in fear. Leo stared down at the monster's head. He raised the vial in his left hand. He pressed his right hand against the tentacle and summoned fire to his palm—a narrowly focused, whitehot burst. Despite seeing it in Utah, it still made me tense.
That got the creature's attention. The monster raised its maw, bellowing in pain, and Leo threw his Greek fire straight down its throat. My stomach dropped like we were plummeting on a rollercoaster because we may as well have been. I looked up and saw a green flash of light inside the giant pink lampshade of the monster's body. The water hit my body like a thousand needles. I saw Leo floating above me, twisting and turning in fear, before everything went dark.
I hoped I had woken up more gracefully than Leo had. He seemed disoriented and Frank was a lot less glad to have someone to talk to.
"About time."
Leo sat up...or rather he drifted upright. We were underwater, in a cave about the size of a two-car garage. Phosphorescent moss covered the ceiling, bathing the room in a blue-and-green glow. The floor was a carpet of sea urchins. Frank levitated nearby in meditation position and I floated on my stomach, my chin in my hands.
With his chubby face and his grumpy expression, he looked like a Buddha who'd achieved enlightenment and wasn't thrilled about it. The only exit to the cave was blocked by a massive abalone shell—its surface glistening in pearl and rose and turquoise. If this cave was a prison, at least it had an awesome door.
"When did you two wake up?"
"I've been awake way longer than you both." Frank shrugged. "That's all I know."
"Hazel wasn't here when I woke up." I shook my head.
"Where are we?" Leo asked. "Where is everyone else?"
"Everyone?" Frank grumbled. "I don't know. As far as I can tell, it's just us and Hazel down here. The fish-horse guys took Hazel about an hour ago, leaving me with you and Y/N." Frank's tone made it obvious he didn't approve of those arrangements. At least, being with Leo. Leo focused on Frank's body for a moment then in a panic, Leo patted his waist.
"They searched us," Frank said. "Took anything that could be a weapon." That was true. I had carried my medpack connected to my own waist for my entirety on the Argo II and now it was completely gone.
"Who?" Leo demanded. "Who are these fish-horse—?"
"Fish-horse guys," Frank clarified, which wasn't very clear. "They must have grabbed us when we fell in the ocean and dragged us...wherever this is."
"The shrimp monster. The Argo II—is the ship okay?" Leo asked.
"I don't know," Frank said darkly. "The others might be in trouble or hurt, or —or worse. But I guess you care more about your ship than your friends." He finished the last part with a snap. I sighed, the tension in the (air? water?) getting thicker.
"What kind of stupid thing —?" Leo started. His thoughts seemed to take back over. "Look, man...I'm sorry I got us into this mess. I totally jacked things up." He took a deep breath. "Me and Hazel holding hands...it's not what you think. She was showing me this flashback from her past, trying to figure out my connection with Sammy."
"Again with Sammy?" I asked.
Frank's angry expression started to unknot, replaced by curiosity. "Did she... did you figure it out?"
"Yeah," Leo said. "Well, sort of. We didn't get a chance to talk about it afterward because of Shrimpzilla, but Sammy was my great-grandfather." Leo explained everything in the simplest form he could (though 'simplest' was probably his best'. Hazel had been sweet on his bisabuelo, a guy who had died when Leo was a baby. At some point, Tía Callida—Hera herself—had talked with Sammy, consoling him and giving him a glimpse into the future. If Hazel had stayed in the 1940s, if she'd married Sammy, Leo might've been her great-grandson.
"Oh, man," Leo said when he had finished the story. "I don't feel so good. But I swear on the Styx, that's what we saw."
Frank had wide glassy eyes and an open mouth. I had a frowning grimace.
"That's freaky."
"Hazel...Hazel liked your great-grandfather? That's why she likes you?"
"Frank, I know this is weird. Believe me. But I don't like Hazel—not that way. I'm not moving in on your girl."
Frank knit his eyebrows. "No?"
Leo began to blush. His eyes quickly went to me before returning to Frank. He seemed to ignore my curious look and decided to change subjects. "Right, so..." He looked around him. "We need to make a plan. How are we breathing? If we're under the ocean, shouldn't we be crushed by the water pressure?"
Frank shrugged. "Fish-horse magic, I guess. I remember the green guy touching my head with the point of a dagger. Then I could breathe."
Leo studied the abalone door. "Can you bust us out? Turn into a hammerhead shark or something?"
Frank shook his head glumly. "My shape-shifting doesn't work. I don't know why. Maybe they cursed me, or maybe I'm too messed up to focus."
"Hazel could be in trouble," I said. "We've got to get out of here."
Leo swam to the door and ran his fingers along the abalone.
"I've already tried," Frank said. "Even if we get out, we have no weapons."
"Hmm..." Leo held up his hand. "I wonder." He concentrated, and fire flickered over his fingers. Then Fire raced up his arm and over his body until he was completely shrouded in a thin veil of flame.
"Leo!" Frank flailed backward like he was falling off a bar stool. Instead of racing to Leo's aid, he hugged the wall to get as far away as possible. I twisted in the water as if I had been lying on a bed and rolled into a position where I could swim towards him.
"Are you alright?" I reached my fingers out and felt the hotness of the flame.
Frank stopped trying to merge with the cave wall. "You're...you're okay?"
"Yeah," Leo grumbled. "Thanks for the assist."
"I—I'm sorry." Frank looked horrified and ashamed. "I just...what happened?"
"Clever magic," Leo said. "There's a thin layer of oxygen around us, like an extra skin. Must be self-regenerating. That's how we're breathing and staying dry. The oxygen gave the fire fuel—except the fire also suffocated me."
"I really don't..." Frank gulped. "I don't like that fire summoning you do." He started getting cozy with the wall again. Leo started laughing.
"Man, I'm not going to attack you."
"It's kind of cool though, you gotta admit." I inputted.
"Fire," Frank repeated, like that one word explained everything.
"Sorry I laughed," he said. "My mom died in a fire. I understand being afraid of it. Did, uh...did something like that happen with either of you?"
I shook my head but Frank seemed to be weighing how much to say. "My house...my grandmother's place. It burned down. But it's more than that..." He stared at the sea urchins on the floor. "Annabeth said I could trust the crew. Even you."
"Even me, huh? Wow, high praise."
"My weakness..." Frank started, like the words cut his mouth. "There's this piece of firewood—"
The abalone door rolled open. A man entered, staring face to face with Leo. From the waist up, he was more or less human—a thin, bare-chested dude with a dagger in his belt and a band of seashells strapped across his chest like a bandolier. His skin was green, his beard scraggly brown, and his longish hair was tied back in a seaweed bandana. A pair of lobster claws stuck up from his head like horns, turning and snapping at random.
From the waist down, the guy was more complicated. He had the forelegs of a blue-green horse, sort of like a centaur, but toward the back, his horse body morphed into a long fishy tail about ten feet long, with a rainbow-colored, Vshaped tail fin.
"I am Bythos," said the green man. "I will interrogate Frank Zhang." His voice was calm and firm, leaving no room for debate.
"Why did you capture us?" Leo demanded. "Where's Hazel?" Bythos narrowed his eyes. His expression seemed to say: Did this tiny creature just talk to me?
"You, Leo Valdez, will go with my brother."
"Your brother?" Leo realized that a much larger figure was looming behind Bythos, with a shadow so wide, it filled the entire cave entrance.
"Yes," Bythos said with a dry smile. "Try not to make Aphros mad. You, Y/N L/N." He looked me up and down, and his dry smile seemed to waver into a prouder beam.
"You are free to explore. We will return your boys to you soon." Bythos said calmly.
"What?" I stammered. Why trap me if this is how they felt?
"You are easy to read, daughter of G/P. Our people feel as though they can trust you already."
So I floated out of our little prison and my jaw dropped in shock. Wherever I was, it was phenomenal.
➻ AUTHOR's NOTE
hey hey
this one im so proud of not because its good (bec its not) buttt because its so long and i put lots of effort into it. this one is kindd of a filler kind of not
ANYWAYS ily all muahuamhu from amelie