#3 - Beach Surprise
published: Monday, 2 July 2018
Leo leaned back on the warm sand with a sigh of satisfaction. The sun beating down on him was perfect when matched with the cooling sea breeze, the freezing drink in his hand, and the view of a very beautiful bikini-clad girl.
"Stop staring," Annabeth hissed at Leo, whose eyes hadn't left her body since she'd taken off her shorts and t-shirt.
When Leo didn't shift his gaze , Calypso smacked him round the head. "Her eyes aren't there," she warned him.
Leo grinned cheekily at his girlfriend. Calypso wasn't very keen on getting in the water - she insisted that the cuts on her legs would sting if she entered the salt water - so she sat on the beach mat next to Leo in a long chiton; the simple white, flowing dress she always wore.
Percy let out another whoop that reached the shore despite him being far, far away in the ocean. His surfboard caught another huge wave, flipping Percy over and headfirst into the water as he reached the wave's crest.
Piper laughed at him so hard she fell off her own surfboard, and the two of them were caught in the current created by Percy's water powers. Will, who was surfing alongside them, got caught in the ripples and nearly toppled off his board.
"That looks terrifying," Hazel said to Frank. She was wearing a dark swimsuit that covered her torso, exposing her neck, arms and legs. Even though Piper told her it was completely normal to wear bikinis, Hazel was more stubborn than Festus was when it came to modesty.
"I guess they like the fear," Frank said with a shrug. He was wearing his swimming trunks, lounging next to Hazel on their picnic mat, food laid out in plates.
On their right, Nico sat on the beach mat he and Will were sharing. He had his head facing downwards as he read his book, completely focused on it.
Leo asked him earlier what book he was reading.
"The Cemetary of the Undead," Nico told him. "Dead bodies wake up at midnight and haunt the town."
Leo shielded his eyes from the sun so he could see Piper catching another wave. Percy didn't make this one as big, so Piper could surf the whole wave till it subsided. When she succeeded, Will and Percy cheered from the water.
"Guys, do you want to join us?" Will shouted at the shore. "The waves are huge."
Leo shrugged. Learning to surf could be fun. He and Annabeth got up and each chose a surfboard from Will's collection.
"Annabeth!" Percy called from the waves. "That board's for professionals, it's harder to balance on."
Annabeth shrugged and continued wading into the water.
Leo was having a bit more trouble holding on to his surfboard. It kept floating away on the water, and Leo was getting a tick in his right eye just from being unable to hold it still.
When they were halfway in the water, Leo called out to Percy, "Send us a wave!"
Percy shrugged and raised a fist, causing a gigantic wall of water to come crashing towards them.
"I MEANT A SMALL WAVE!" Leo screamed, abandoning his surfboard as he started making a run for the shore. He looked to his left and saw Annabeth climbing into her surfboard and paddling towards the wave. "ANNABETH, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
Leo half-ran, half-watched as Annabeth steadied herself with her hands and placed both feet on the surfboard. Slowly, slowly, she found her balance and started mimicking the stance she'd seen Percy use earlier.
When the wave hit her, she travelled straight up instead of drowning as Leo had thought, and she surged down the wall of water, leaving a trail of white water as she descended.
In his awe, Leo had stopped running, and the wave hit him like a hard rock, pushing him underwater.
Everything was dark, and Leo felt his bottom hit the floor. He pushed up using his feet and burst out into the air, spluttering water and gasping for breath.
"I'm going to kill you," Leo shouted at Percy, who sitting on his surfboard and laughing away.
"Annabeth," Percy called to his girlfriend. She'd gone down with the wave at the end, her blonde hair emerged from the water as her surfboard bobbed up next to her. "I didn't know you could surf!"
Annabeth snorted, wiping her wet hair out of her face. "Percy, I'm from California, of course, I can surf." She tried wringing her hair dry, letting loads of water fall back into the ocean. Then she shook her head like a wet dog trying to dry its fur. "That was an easy one. Who's up for more?"
"AW YEAH!" Percy screamed as he streaked through the curling wave, his hair blown backwards by the wind. He glanced behind quickly to check on Annabeth, but she was doing fine on her own. Her blonde curls were flowing behind her in the wind, but her grey eyes were focused straight ahead.
"Percy..." Annabeth shouted something, but the thundering of the wave was too loud. Percy gestured to his ears to tell her he couldn't hear anything.
Soon enough, he realised what she was saying. He hit an anomaly in the wave and went crashing straight through the wave, disrupting its flow such that Annabeth, who was behind him, also whirled straight into the water.
They both burst out on the surface grinning, paddling with one hand on their surfboards to each other.
"You idiot! I had that in the bag," Annabeth scolded, though she began giggling straight after that, so the lesson wasn't very effective.
"Sorry, I got distracted," Percy apologised with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
"Oh yeah?" Annabeth his a smile.
Percy nodded. "I saw the most beautiful thing in this entire ocean. I couldn't look away." He leaned forward and captured her lips with his.
"Stop making the rest of us look bad," Leo's shouts travelled across the water, forcing Annabeth and Percy apart due to their laughter. "Don't you ever take a day off?"
It was the ongoing joke in their friend group that Percy was the epitome of all boyfriends. Every time he did something romantic, mostly without meaning too, the boys would kill him because it meant their girlfriends expected the same from them as well. Worst of all was Leo, who was absolutely the worst at romantic gestures.
Percy glanced back to see Will and Piper surfing another wave, and Will wiped out when he leaned too far too the right. He spun like a wheel and crashed into the water.
Piper settled into the normal water slowly, trying to maintain her balance. When it was calm, she slowly slid off her board and paddled towards Percy and Annabeth.
"What a wave!" she exclaimed excitedly. Piper hadn't had this much fun since her dad brought her surfing years ago.
"Guys, guys!" Percy turned around to see Nico waving his arms wildly.
"What?" Percy shouted back.
"Where's Will?" Nico called.
Almost immediately, the four surfers felt something was wrong. Percy reached his hands into the water and searched it for his lost friend. Without warning, he dived underwater and zoomed straight through the current.
Annabeth tried to grab on to him, but he was too fast, and she was left stranded with Piper and Leo.
The water didn't have a single ripple in it, which was strange, because the waves they'd surfed on shouldn't have dispelled that quickly. Leo was perched on his surfboard, glancing around warily.
"It's so calm," Piper said, echoing Annabeth's thoughts exactly.
"Too calm," Annabeth murmured.
As if on cue, a huge splash of water erupted in between the three of them, sending each of them flying in opposite directions.
Piper felt herself black out as her head hit the water.
"Piper!" Annabeth screamed, trying her best to swim towards the daughter of Aphrodite, who was sinking rapidly into the murky waters.
"Leo, get back to the shore!" Leo didn't hesitate and started paddling his surfboard back to the shore as quickly as his hands could take him.
Annabeth was about to ask him to call for help when Leo let out a shriek, and was yanked into the sea, his shouts muffled by the water.
"Leo! Leo!" Annabeth screamed, swishing her hands through the water, grabbing wildly for anything at all.
The sea grew calm again.
Then it exploded. The sea spray got in Annabeth's eyes, and she gasped for breath amongst the water and rubbed the salt out of her eyes, she felt something rough wrap around her left ankle and pull her sharply downwards. She didn't even have time to scream.
Everything around Annabeth was a swirl of dark colours. She couldn't breathe, and she could feel the pressure increasing as she got dragged downwards. Annabeth knee that she was going to die, either from the lack of oxygen or from the water pressure.
She reached down to her ankle and tried to pry the rough tentacle off her foot. Opening her eyes and wincing as the salt entered her pupils, Annabeth tried to see through the pain.
Her lungs were burning, her head was pounding and her heart was jumping out of her chest. Annabeth could feel her eyelids fluttering close as she lost the energy to struggle any longer.
-
"Where did they go?" Hazel shrieked, jumping to her feet and peering into the distance. Her friends had been on the horizon mere seconds earlier.
A few large splashes later, they all disappeared one by one.
"Something's wrong," Nico insisted. "We have to get there."
Frank started running towards the water, and as he reached the end of dry land, he morphed into a large shark, pushing off the sand and zooming through the sea.
Jason took off in a similar running start and soared straight into the sky.
Nico clenched a fist and three skeletal eel-like creatures erupted from the water. He climbed onto one and looked back at Hazel and Calypso. "You coming?"
Hazel didn't hesitate to get on one of them. She hit the creature's ribcage, and it took off across the water.
Calypso looked at the last skeleton uncertainly.
"Leo's in danger, we have to go," Nico urged.
Calypso took a deep breath and awkwardly climbed onto it. Nico whistled and they shot off across the ocean, Calypso's screams lost in the wind.
Frank the Shark leaped up beside them and chattered. Nico interpreted that as "I couldn't find anything."
"Go deeper," Nico instructed Frank, and he promptly dived back into the water.
"I can sense Riptide somewhere down there," Hazel shouted to Nico. She was tracking him using her metal detector senses.
"Annabeth wears her camp necklace everywhere," Nico realised suddenly.
"The beads are all plastic," Hazel reminded him. "I can only track metal."
"Her father's ring is on it," Calypso remembered. "I think the band is steel."
Hazel squeezed her eyes shut as she reached out with her senses. She could envision a map of the metals within a ten-mile radius of her, some sunken ship parts, some forgotten belongings, and then...the ring on Annabeth's necklace. She reached out a hand and made a pulling motion towards her torso.
Nico stares at her sister strangely. He had absolutely no idea what she was doing, but he hoped it would help them.
"Spread out," he called out to Calypso. "See if you can find anyone in the water." He patted the side of his skeleton eel and it lurched forward abruptly, leaping through the ocean again.
It was such a surprise when Percy burst out of the water that Nico let out a high-pitched scream and nearly fell off his eel. Percy tossed a body - Will - into Nico's arms, and dived back into the water.
Nico tried to place Will in front of him on the eel, but Will started spamming rapidly, and he quickly jolted awake.
Will coughed up a few mouthfuls of water, wiping his mouth and dousing his hand in the sea water. "Oh gods, oh gods."
"What the hell happened?" Nico asked him worriedly. "Are you hurt? Is your head okay? Can you breathe alright?"
Will chuckled amidst his coughs. "Yeah-I-I'm fine. Something dragged me into the sea when I fell in. I was about to drown when Percy found me."
Nico's eyes shifted to further behind Will, where Percy burst out of the water again and tossed a screaming Leo into the air before diving back into the water.
Jason swooped down and caught Leo's arm, carrying is weight with the winds. "Bro, what happened?"
Leo stopped his screaming but he was still panting from the scare. "What-I-He-I-something dragged me!"
"I know," Will comforted him. "Me too."
"I almost drowned," Leo gasped, slumping in Jason's arms.
"Did you see Piper and Annabeth?" Nico asked.
Will glanced around and seemed to notice their missing friends. "Where are they?"
The answer came quickly enough as Annabeth burst out of the water, crashing straight into Hazel. Both of them toppled off the skeleton eel and fell into the water.
Nico urged his eel towards them, and Will helped him drag them both out of the water.
"I'm okay," Hazel assured him, hoisting Annabeth onto the eel. "I summoned her to me using the ring on her necklace. I wasn't sure if it would work, but it did drag her here."
Hazel insisted on swimming alongside the eel. "There isn't enough space for both of us," she claimed.
Will leaned over Annabeth's body, examining her quickly. "Hades, Nico, she isn't breathing."
"What?" Nico said breathlessly, leaning over frantically and shook Annabeth's shoulder. "Annabeth? Annabeth, wake up!"
Jason swooped down next to them and hovered over Annabeth, shaking her as well.
"Pull her over, pull her over," Will shouted, and Nico ordered the eel over.
Will leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, breathing air into her lungs.
Nico waited with bated breath, exchanging an anxious look with Hazel.
Annabeth didn't stir.
Will withdrew within a few seconds with frustrated groans. "No, it isn't working! Her lungs are still filled with water. Nico, we need to find Percy. We need him to save-"
A loud scream pierced the air, and Nico spun around to see Calypso disappear under water.
"Callie!" Leo's shouts filled the air as he struggled against Jason's grip. "Let me go! Let me go!"
"Leo, stop!" Jason cried out. "I can't hold you!"
"Leo, stop it!" Nico shouted. "You'll die if you try to save her."
Leo opened his mouth to reply but another shout interrupted him.
Nico reached out his hand, but he was too late - Hazel was yanked into the waves in a swirl of bubbles.
"No!" Will croaked, pulling back from his attempt at resuscitating Annabeth. "Gods, it's some kind of monster!"
Frank the Shark leaped our of the water, transforming back into a human as he flew through the air. He landed next to Nico with a splash. "I just saw Hazel! What happened?"
He was answered by another enormous eruption of water, this one a thousand times bigger than the last few.
Nico could feel his pupils dilating in astonishment as a gigantuan sea serpent burst out of the water and into the air.
It was the largest monster Nico had ever seen, and despite his history of Titans and giants, this sea serpent terrified him more than anything he had ever faced before.
The sea serpent had large emerald eyes, its scales a shiny gold. It had red spikes protruding in a column down its back, and large tentacles waved through the air like hands, prepared to rampage through anything in its path.
"Calypso!" Leo shouted, his girlfriend desperately dangling in the air, one of the sea serpent's tentacles wrapped tightly around her ankle.
There was a look of utter terror in her eyes as she screamed, her arms flailing in the air.
Leo suddenly realised that she wasn't afraid of a little sting her cuts would give her when she entered the water. Calypso never entered the water because she couldn't swim.
The sea serpent let out a deafening roar as it raised a tentacle and slapped Leo and Jason straight out of the sky.
The two boys plummeted and smashed into the water, bobbing slowly as the waves kept them afloat. Leo wrapped an unconscious Jason's arm around his neck and tried his best to swim towards Caypso's abandoned eel.
Percy had one hand wrapped around one of the serpent's spikes, and his other hand holding Piper's arm as she dangle dangerously near the serpent's tentacles.
He pushed off with his feet and leaped off the serpent's back, willing the water to keep Piper afloat amongst waves.
Percy surfaced from the water to see Will waving frantically at him. He looked at him in confusion, but his vision tunnelled when he saw Annabeth's still body lying on a skeleton eel beside him.
"No," he gasped, shooting through the water and was next to her within a split second. Percy placed a hand on her chest and concentrated, controlling the water in her lungs.
Will watched with wide eyes as the water shot out of Annabeth's mouth like a geyser. Coughs wracked her body and she gasped for breath, the spasms forcing her to slide off the eel.
Percy readily caught her in his arms and kept her currents at his feet to help him stay afloat. "Gods, I'm so sorry," he whispered to her, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'm so sorry, I should've gotten there sooner."
Annabeth's eyelids fluttered open slowly as she stared weakly at him. She caught sight of the rampaging sea serpent behind him and her eyes widened so much she was surprised they didn't pop out of their sockets. "Holy Hera!"
Percy turned his head, as if suddenly reminded of the threat at hand. The serpent's tentacles whipped through the air, knocking Nico and Will off their eel and narrowly missing Frank's head.
Hazel shrieked as she was flung around by the serpent's tentacles, her hands not strong enough to pry it off her leg.
"That's an aquatic drakon," Annabeth shouted. "They're supposed to be extinct!"
"What exactly is your definition of 'extinct'?!" Leo shouted back.
Percy abruptly pulled Annabeth underwater to avoid a swinging tentacle. He formed a bubble around the two of them so she could help him assess the monster.
The currents pushed their bubble towards the drakon's body. It had four strong legs dug firmly into the sea bed, and its tentacles were all above water.
Annabeth counted twelve tentacles and squinted to see the drakon clearly. Its scales were clearly impenetrable, and she guessed that its spikes were poisonous. Its entire body was covered in the golden scales, but its tentacles were purely skin.
"We have to take it down from above the surface," Annabeth told Percy. Her voice came out clear, unlike the muffled underwater tone she had been expecting. "Take us back up."
Percy pushed them back to the surface, and a wave lifted them up into the air.
Annabeth shrieked as she extended her arms to keep from falling. She was surfing on pure water.
Percy handed her Riptide and conjured a water sword for himself. As they heard the drakon, Percy swung it, slicing off a few spikes as the wave took him backwards to avoid the tentacles.
Annabeth has a different idea. She leaped straight off of the wave and landed nimbly on the drakon's back, her fingers and feet using its scales as handholds and footholds.
Percy wanted to ask at her what in hades she was doing, but there was no way she could hear him.
Annabeth glanced downwards, and had a sudden rush of vertigo as she realised how high in the air she actually was. Below, Calypso and Hazel were being swung in circles by tentacles.
Annabeth counted the seconds in her head, and promptly jumped off the drakon's back and onto one of its tentacles. Her feet slipped, and her free hand reached out to grab the tentacle, allowing her to swing from it.
Her arm trembled from the effort in holding her body weight, but she kept herself calm. "It's just like monkey bars," Annabeth whispered shakily.
She used her momentum to swing forward, quickly switching Riptide to her left hand, and catching on to the tentacle with her right. Clinging onto the tentacle with her knees and arms, Annabeth scampered along the tentacle - which was a lot easier said than done - until she reached the very end, where Calypso was dangling from.
Annabeth glanced down and saw that Jason had regained his consciousness, and was swimming with Leo and Piper. Leo stared anxiously at Calypso, as if he was ready to catch her if she fell.
"JASON!" Annabeth hollered, hoping he looked up. Not bothering to see if he had or not, Annabeth swung forward and promptly chopped off the end of the drakon's tentacles with Riptide. Calypso, still wrapped in the tentacle, rocketed towards the water, screaming as she fell.
Fortunately, Jason had looked up, and he zoomed into the sky, catching Calypso in his arms before bringing her down to Leo.
Annabeth glanced down once more. Nico had summoned a few other eels to transport them back. Piper was already halfway back to the shore on one eel, and Leo and Jason were helping Calypso onto a second eel with Will on it.
"Be careful!" Percy called out to her. He was blasting the drakon with gallons of water at a time, but even his water ropes couldn't hold the monster back. It was, like, if Godzilla and an octopus had a baby.
He watched as Annabeth reached the tentacle with Hazel on it and sliced their friend free, letting her free-fall back into the ocean. Jason shot off to stop her fall, but he was too far away.
Percy raised a hand, and a wave cushioned Hazel's fall, swallowing her whole and gently placing her back on the surface.
However, in his distraction, the drakon managed to raise another tentacle and brought it down on Percy with full force.
Annabeth leaped off the tentacle she was on and she fell through the air for a few seconds. Raising Riptide, she sliced through the tentacle aiming for Percy, letting its other half fall into the sea and sink to the bottom.
She closed her eyes and raised her knees to her chest, cannon-balling straight into the sea.
Percy set off to find Annabeth the second he saw her reach the water with a large splash. With the currents help, he was reunited with her again, and they swam towards Nico.
Jason was carrying Leo with the winds, and the two of them launched attacks on the drakon higher up in the air.
Leo shot balls of fire at vulnerable points, such as the eyes and the mouth - tricks he'd learnt after the fiasco with the sea turtle on the Argo II - and called it stupid names, which simply annoyed the drakon.
Jason couldn't do much on his end. His sword was back in his cabin, and lightning was not a good idea in such a large body of water with multiple of his friends and sea life in it. He tried harnessing any passing wind spirits, and used them as ropes to restrain the drakon.
"Give me a boost!" Annabeth shouted to her boyfriend. He had thick ropes of water lashing the monster round the neck and slashing against its tentacles like whips, but he managed to spare a look her way.
Percy tensed his arms, and a sharp pull in his gut cued the water at Annabeth's feet to push her out of the water, sending her soaring through the air.
She grabbed hold of a tentacle and scurried to the part were it joint the drakon's body, and sliced off the entire tentacle.
The drakon let out a piercing shriek that nearly shattered her eardrums, but she forced herself to hold onto its scales. Annabeth continued around the drakon like that, chopping off its tentacle-arms as she went.
The drakon struggled against Percy and Jason's bonds, but they held it fast so that Annabeth could disable it. Leo blinded it with fire, burning its eyes in its sockets - a gruesome sight Leo wished he never had to see - and searing any unprotected skin. Nico had already summoned dead marine life skeletons from the sea bed to help them, but he had tired himself out for the time being, and Jason forced him to return to the shore on the last eel.
"If you can get it in the air, I can summon lightning!" Jason shouted to his companions.
Percy nodded as much as he could. The effort of holding the drakon was draining his energy rapidly, and yellow spots were already dancing in his vision. He tried his best to pry the monster's feet out of the sea bed using the currents, but it was dug too deeply in.
Letting out a frustrated shout, he looked up to Jason. "I can't! It's too strong!"
Annabeth finished off the last tentacle and held on to the drakon's torso. "Wait, I've got an idea! Leo, come with me, and Percy, give us air."
She dived down, and Leo, with a tentative glance at Jason, free-fell into the water once the wind released him.
Annabeth opened her eyes in the water. There was a bubble of air around her, and she glanced behind to see Leo with a similar bubble around his body.
"Over there." She gestured to the drakon's four legs that were buried in the sand.
They swam as best as they could towards the leg closest to them. Annabeth pulled herself into it, and used Riptide to pry off the scales on the leg, revealing the skin below it.
"If you press a fire to it..." Annabeth hinted. Leo flashed her a thumbs-up sign and swam beside her.
When she pried off enough scales, Leo heated a hand and pressed it against the drakon's leg. An animalistic scream above the water travelled all the way down to them as the burnt leg shifted out of the sand, and Leo and Annabeth exchanged grins at their success.
She got to work on another leg and Leo burned that one as well.
They worked in perfect sync, and Leo wondered how he had never considered asking Annabeth to work with him in Bunker 9. She was, according to literally everyone, the smartest person at camp, and she could probably find problems in his machines that he never saw before. And she wasn't that scary once he got to know her a little.
They criss-crossed between legs so quickly that eventually, the drakon didn't have the opportunity to bury its leg into the sand before lifting another up when Leo burned it.
Annabeth could see the water at the drakon's feet swirling, meaning that Percy was trying his best to lift the drakon up.
Finally came the moment when all four legs came unstuck, and the drakon was pushed straight up and out of the water. Annabeth cheered and high-fived Leo as they swam to the surface to end the battle.
The drakon shot into the sky, gaining velocity alongside Jason until it ran out of speed and prepared to start its descent.
"We won't miss you," Jason notified the drakon before he thrust his right hand forward, commanding a clap of thunder, followed by a striking bolt of lightning.
The lightning hit the drakon right between the eyes, and the charred monster exploded into bronze dust as it fell. Jason, who was too close to the explosion, was pushed back by the force, unable to fly any longer.
"Wait, Percy!" Leo pointed up at the sky, where Jason was hurtling towards them at a terrifying speed. At that rate, he was going to hit the water and become demigod pancake.
Percy could barely stay afloat - he had released the currents holding him up and was treading water manually - in his state of exhaustion. He could feel himself about to black out. With one last sweeping motion, Percy summoned a wave that caught Jason in the air, similar to how he had saved Hazel, and brought him safely to the water.
Percy felt his legs give out and the water swallowing him as he sank to the bottom, whilst bronze dust rained down from the sky.
-
"Gods, I hope he wakes up. It'll take us hours to get back to the shore without him."
"He must've over-exerted himself. That was quite a fight."
"Definitely don't want to do that again."
"Oh c'mon, if you ignore all the near-death experiences, it was pretty fun."
"You and I have very different definitions of fun."
Percy rolled his head to the side sleepily, forcing his heavy eyes open.
Something tickled his nose, something that the sunlight glinted off of and caught his eye. As his mind woke up, Percy quickly realised that it was blonde hair - Annabeth's blonde hair.
Percy tried to ask her if she was okay, but it came out more like a "uh-eurgh". His head was throbbing, and his vision was spinning wildly, but he could vaguely make out that he was lying on a surfboard, swaying delicately from side to side.
Jason was lying on another surfboard, and Annabeth and Leo were pushing them towards the shore.
"You okay?" Percy mumbled, trying to sit up, but was forced down by the throbbing in his temple.
"Look who's asking," Annabeth reminded. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. "You need to stop overusing your powers, Percy. One day, you won't wake up."
"I'll always wake up," Percy told her with a grin. "I have you to motivate me."
He got up and pressed his lips to hers passionately. Curling a hand round her waist, Percy could almost hear Leo rolling his eyes behind them.
"OH, COME ON!"