CH 34- ANNABETH
If it weren't for the hydra, Annabeth and Jason would've certainly been toast. Burnt toast, for that matter.
Their quest started off simple; they had been transported to the Corinth Canal itself (A/N picture at side) where they would use their skills to find the Teumessian fox and bring it to whoever Hera had been talking with. Boats were passing through the narrow walls as Annabeth peered down.
"Whoa, that's steep," Jason said. Annabeth had seen pictures of the Canal before, but it was an entirely different feeling seeing it up close and personal.
After an hour of arguing, Jason and Annabeth made a pact; they wouldn't let these personal problems get in the way of completing their quest. "Once we finish the quest, we can argue as much as we want," Annabeth had said, and Jason agreed.
Then Piper and Frank arrived. Annabeth's heart stopped as soon as she saw Jason and Piper embracing. Whatever bitterness she had been holding suddenly faded away. Annabeth felt for the couple; it was as if they'd been holding their breath until the moment they were reunited. Annabeth longed to be in Percy's arms too. But it would have to wait.
Sadly, now that she and Jason were separated from their friends once again, the same old bitterness slowly started to trickle back into Annabeth's mind. What was wrong with her?
The duo first stopped at a small cafe (the only cafe around there, for that matter) and each bought a tyropita and their own drinks. They did not share.
Annabeth took Deadalus's laptop out of her backpack. "Alright, I think it would be wisest to find the guy we're supposed to give the fox to. He could give us some tips. I've done some research, and I've decided we're most likely to find him-"
"Wait, I think we should just go looking for the fox," Jason interrupted. "It's not like there's something we don't already know. We would be wasting time."
"It's not a waste of time," Annabeth said through gritted teeth, "because we would probably waste our time instead searching every corner of Corinth when the man could be giving us vital information! What is it with guys and asking for help?"
"What is it with girls and NOT asking for help?" said Jason, throwing up his arms in exasperation.
"Oh, so you're blaming us for not being stuck-up ignorant fools?" She crossed her arms.
"I never said that!"
Annabeth was about to make another snappy comment when a scream resonated from outside. She and Jason shared a look, and immediately ran to help, fearing it was monster related.
It was a monster all right; half a dozen hydras (is that the correct plural form?) were slithering around slowly, not really causing any harm to the mortals, but the people seemed terrified notheless. Just like the one Annabeth had fought with Percy and Tyson many years ago, these ones had nine diamond shaped heads with mouths spewing toxic acid through the razor sharp teeth. Some heads were even breathing fire.
Most people were tourists, so they were screaming in all different languages. Annabeth couldn't tell what the Mist made them see.
Annabeth had never heard of more than one hydra appearing at once, but there was a first time for everything, right?
"Okay Jason, you take the ones on the-" Annabeth started to say, but immediately faltered when she noticed Jason had already started to attack the monsters.
"Jason, you're going to get everyone, including yourself, KILLED!" Annabeth shrieked. "We NEED to cooperate!"
Either he was ignoring her or he simply didn't hear, because he continued chopping heads off and then zapping the stubs with lightning.
Annabeth stamped her foot down in frustration. "Fine! I didn't want to work with you anyway!" (A/N Haha dirty joke ;) )
First off, she realized, she needed to save the mortals. A lady's hair had caught fire and others were franctically trying to extinguish it. Luckily, most people came from tour buses and had already locked themselves inside safely. Others, however were not so fortunate. Their cars had been crushed by the hydras who had slithered over them like tin cans.
"Everyone, remain calm! Go to the cafe!" Annabeth yelled, hoping people understood her. She started directing them towards the only building on that side of the Canal. Fortunately, Greeks understood English pretty well and so the locals were carrying on the message. Soon enough, most were out of harm's way. All that was left was for the demigods to kill the monsters.
Annabeth went to check on Jason to see how he was doing. Somehow, he had managed to kill two of the hydras, leaving only four left. Only.
She watched in horror as one of the mouths of a hydra spat some poison at Jason. It seemed to go in slow motion as Jason lifted his gladius up to shield his face. His face was saved, luckily, but his weapon was not. As soon as the acid hit it, his gladius crumbled and disintegrated in his hand, leaving him weaponless.
It didn't look like it affected him much as he tucked and dived away from the acid-spitting monsters, barely missing the poison by millimeters.
Annabeth unsheathed her ivory sword and charged towards them. A blast of fire hit a piece of wood on the ground, almost hitting her sneaker, singeing the hairs on her legs. The fire quickly started to spread, even though there didn't appear to be any gaz or oil on the ground.
Annabeth covered her nose with her shirt. She could barely see across the smoke. Where was Jason? Where were the hydras? In a panicky moment, she feared he was dead. There was almost no way he could've fought off the hydra without a weapon!
"Jason!" she shouted.
No answer besides the crackling of the fire.
Finally, she could make out two diamond shaped heads above the flames. She tried going to them, but she couldn't find a way around them. She looked around her, and realized she was trapped in a circle of fire. If she didn't find a way out of it soon...
Suddenly, she didn't know where it came from, but a hydra was sharing the circle of fire with Annabeth. Flames licked at its scaly body, not even affecting it. Great. A fireproof overgrown repitle was after her. Then, a second hydra surged from the flames. Two against one.
The first hydra spit toxic acid at her. She dodged it and raised her arm to hack off a head, as was habit. Two rapidly grew in its place. They didn't even bother spewing fire.
The heat was started to make Annabeth's eyes water. She was already sweating buckets and was finding it harder and harder to breathe. What she needed was a piece of wood to light on fire so she could burn the stubs on the necks, just like Hercules did. Or..
What had she and Percy done to kill the hydra? Oh right, Clarisse had burnt off the heads using the canons on the CSS Birmingham. Since Annabeth was all out of canons and ships (A/N OH MY GOD), she needed to do it the old fashioned way.
She bent down, and on all fours, searched for any flammable object. At least she was below the smoke, so she could uncover her nose. Plus, the hydras would have more trouble finding her.
By accident, her knee hit her wrist and the sword in her hand skittered away. Annabeth cursed in her head as she now searched for two important objects.
All of a sudden, a hydra head drooped down and spat poison at her. Years of training was the only thing that saved her as she used her fast reflexes to roll away.
Fortunately, it missed her. Unfortunately, her hair caught fire.
She processed it in stages. At first, It didn't feel like anything. The only way she knew her hair had caught fire was the strange burning smell that seemed to be coming from her. Then her back felt extremely cold, probably because it was so hot her body couldn't process it. That's when it hit her.
She seemed to jump up twenty feet, like they did in cartoons.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" she screeched. "HELP! MY HAIR'S ON FIRE!!!"
It was hard to concentrate or think, but she did like the firemen taught you to do when you were young: stop, drop, and roll.
Stop, drop, roll. Stop, drop roll. She repeated the exercise over and over again while screaming. At some point the refrain of "This Girl is on Fire" popped into her head, courtesy of Leo, probably.
Great, she was suffering so bad she was going mental. Again.
Suddenly, a dark shadow passed over her. She looked up, only to see a... storm cloud?
The storm cloud crackled with lightning and let some raindrops fall. What was a light drizzle quickly became a downpour.
With a trembling hand, Annabeth reached for her ponytail. She signed in relief. Sure, the ends were singed and some hair had definitely burnt off, but at least it was no longer on fire.
Not even worrying how bad she must've looked, Annabeth stood up. Jason was alive, thank the gods, and was battling the remaining hydras on his own, with no weapon besides his powers. One of his shoes was missing and his foot was covered in black soot, just like the first time Annabeth had ever seen Jason Grace. The foot missing the shoe, she realized, was the same as the first time too.
Was there a message the gods were trying to send, perhaps?
She didn't dwell too much on it though, as she began to fight the monsters too. Somehow, all it took was one look with Jason to understand the plan. She would cut off the heads, and Jason would fly up using his wind powers and zap the stubs with lightning.
From that moment on, Annabeth went into autopilot mode. Dodge, stab, roll, cut. It was as if someone was controlling all her actions. She didn't even have to think twice about what she was doing.
Too soon, the last hydra collapsed and turned into dust. The fight was over.
Annabeth looked up at Jason to congratulate him. Her smile quickly faded when she noticed he was lying on the ground, possibly unconscious. She ran to him and dropped to his side. "Jason, are you okay?"
For a second she thought the hydra had bitten him, or the poison had hit him, or worse. His eyes were closed. But he was still breathing. "Jason?" she shook him. "JASON!"
Suddenly, his eyes shot open, and he grinned like a madman. "Well, that was fun."
Annabeth sobbed in relief as she gave him a bone cracking hug. She had seriously thought he was dead, and the last words she had ever said to him weren't all that pretty.
"Uh, Annabeth, you can let go now," Jason wheezed. She happily obliged.
"I'm sorry we had to argue," she said.
"Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you," he apologized.
"It's ok. At least we worked together at the end, because if we hadn't, we probably would have been killed individually."
"Let's promise to never fight like that again," Jason said, holding out his hand.
Annabeth shook it. "I promise." She didn't even dare swearing on the River Styx.
Jason then scratched his head, as if hesitating what to say next. "I was, um, thinking of telling you why I've been so... distant lately. And irritable, and I guess kind of mean..."
Annabeth put a hand of his shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it. You're not the only one. Both of us are guilty for being like that," she reassured. And she meant it.
Jason smiled, then took a deep breath. "Okay. So you know me and Thalia have the same mother, right?"
"Of course," Annabeth said.
"Well, she's come back from the dead."
BAM! Haha I like that cliffhanger.
Warning: long Author's Note up ahead.
What do you do when you run out of ideas? YOU WRITE A BATTLE SCENE! Lol just kidding I've been planning this chappie for a long time.
Ok peeps, what's up? You may be wondering where I got such an amazing idea like that, right? Well, I took the first official BoO chapter for inspiration. Because Jason mentions something about his mom, correct? Wait, I guess this means I have to do a disclaimer or something.
I, Theresa P., and my co-writer Rachel N., do not own these characters, the settings, or the "Jason's mom's alive" idea. They belong to Rick Riordan. This fanfiction is written strictly for the pleasure of writing while awaiting in anticipation for the official and final volume of Heroes of Olympus, the Blood of Olympus, to be released. However, please notify us in case of any copyright infringement of our fanfic.
Ah, glad I got that out of the way.
Dedication goes to our squirrel @-Always- for FINALLY reading our fanfic! (Don't worry we still love you)
Now, I'm sure we've already told you this and we're probably starting to get annoying, but it would mean a lot if you could check out our new HoO fanfic, The Quest of Four. When talking, Rachel and I have both admitted we enjoy writing that fanfic a lot more than this one. Feel free to boo. (lol get it?) We write that story with a lot of passion, a lot more than we do with this one. The evidence is clear; our chapters for QoF are considerably longer than the ones for BoO. Idk why it's like that, maybe because we've been writing this one for so long. Anyways, this fanfic will remain our top priority till the real BoO is released.
I apologize for that EXTREMELY long A/N and I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer vacay! (If you're having one. If you're not, STAY STRONG!!)
~Tessassy
P.S. Also quick reminder that we follow back!!