The Wheel Of Time

I started to wake up slowly, the pitch black ebbing away into a dark grey. Before I knew it I could think almost clearly. My mind was awake, but my body wasn’t even close. Before I could move I was freaking out.

I remembered Annabeth and me walking up to the two attackers, but everything after that was blurry and confusing. The woman’s eyes seemed to literally grow darker as we neared and as I looked into them, I felt the wind stop. I saw her hair still moving in it, but I couldn’t feel it. I just felt warm like sunlight. Then I was falling, exhausted and heavy. I couldn’t pick up my feet anymore. I felt dizzy and I tried to back away, but just ended falling forward to my knees. My head hit the cool wood of the deck, and I saw Annabeth’s blond curls fall next to me. I wanted to scream her name, shake her to see if she was alright, but I just closed my eyes. They felt so heavy and I was tired. It made sense; I needed to sleep. I just couldn’t remember why.

Then it was cold; bitter cold and wet. I strained to move my hands one at a time then at the same time. I repeated this with my feet, arms and legs, until I managed to roll over. I knew that I couldn’t stand, and I would be much too tired to walk toward her. So I pulled my arms up and army-crawled towards her. When I got to her I push myself up into a sitting position against the metal pole that was the banister of the stairs. I leaned down and pulled her slowly up until her head rested in my lap.

Then I went into panic mode, checking for breathing, a pulse, any wounds, and generally distracted myself from breaking down in the middle of the deck. But there was only so much I could do with Annabeth still passed out. Eventually I just had to smooth out her hair and let her sleep.

I looked up for the first time since I woke up. David was leaned up against the side of the boat by the railing, and since he didn’t seem to be bleeding or burned, I assumed he had passed out, too. I heard coughing and looked around, until my eyes fell on Elizabeth and Luke in the middle of the soaking wet deck. Liz looked relatively dry, while Luke was sopping wet and hacking into the floor boards. He shook slightly, as Liz patted him on the back.

She looked alright, no wounds, not even a scratch, though the edge of shorts seemed to be a bit wet from where she was kneeling in their little puddle of what seemed to be sea water from the smell. Luke finally just slumped forward onto the deck, breathing deeply, almost wheezing. Liz looked up and around. She looked angry. But I had seen that type of anger before. She wasn’t just angry, she was terrified, and I felt that she wouldn’t hesitate to take out the first thing that threatened her, even if they were her friends.

Annabeth had given me that look several times over the years, and it was usually my cue to either turn directly around or walk away, or to come over and pull her off of somebody. I just hoped she wouldn’t hurt Luke, given he was the closest target. But I forgot all about Luke when I noticed her eyes.

They were like hurricanes, swirling grey, and green, and deep blue. She wasn’t even looking at me, but they pierced me and I felt shivers run up and down my spine. Everything in me said to run; grab Annabeth and get out of here. But I couldn’t move. I was staked to the wood, frozen and vulnerable. And that was all before she caught my eyes. The world spun, though I was sitting still, and the coldest feeling ran through me, like death chasing away the life I had. She looked into my eyes, and I could almost feel her in my own mind. I stared and only got dizzier. I was going to die watching her eyes.

I struggled to close my eyes. I finally managed to bring the blackness back, and I felt it lift, whatever it was, and warmth rushed back into my fingers and arms. “

“Liz…” I said my voice shaking, “Could you… close… your eyes?” I asked her, hoping beyond all hope that she wouldn’t lash out.

I heard movement and footsteps on the wood getting further away. Then they stopped.

“Oh..!” I heard her surprised whisper from across the deck and I opened my eyes she was sitting on the floor next to the railing, eyes squeezed shut.

“I’m sorry…” She whispered, “I can usually tell when I’m doing that.” She said, surprising me.

“You knew that you could do that?” I asked. She nodded.

“Don’t move and open your eyes,” I started but she was already shaking her head at me.

“if you don’t look directly at me, I’m okay. Just open your eyes.” I said calmly, and I saw her eye-lids flutter a little. Then they opened, and the storm was still there. I wanted to jerk away, but I could already see it dissipating; like a storm was being blown away. Soon her eyes were back to normal, a crazy mix of deep blue and bright green.

“It’s alright now.” I said and she looked at me. Before, those eyes had sent a chill through me. Now they made me feel warm inside, like sitting in the sun in central park. I smiled at her.

“You are an interesting person, Elizabeth Cross. So many secrets.” I said, thinking aloud.

“She shook her head smiling. “No secrets; just things I haven’t told you yet.” She stood up and walked back toward Luke; he seem to be asleep.

“What’s the difference?” I asked. Then I closed my eyes worried about the response I would get. These days I was doing much better about thinking before I spoke. But I didn’t have to monitor it as much at camp.

I heard only silence. I opened my eyes to find her kneeling next to Luke, but she seemed to be thinking about it. Finally she grabbed Luke’s arm and wrapped it around her shoulder. She then pulled him up and started dragging him towards the back of the boat, under the awning. As she passed she seemed to pant. But I heard what it really was

“Secrets, you’ll never hear. But I plan to tell you everything else.” And then she was gone. I sat there for I don’t know how long. As I watched, the ocean flattened out; the waves coming under control; the clouds left the sky, leaving it a startling blue. I closed my eyes.
I must have fallen asleep again after that, because I woke up to Annabeth screaming at me.

“Percy?! Wake up! Percy?!” She was shaking my shoulder, hard enough to probably leave a bruise. I opened my eyes, and stood up, ready for a fight. However the little adrenalin in my system was not enough to keep me up right. I staggered, falling on to the railing.

“Percy?!” Annabeth said again. She was on her hands and knees next to me.

“I’m… I’m alright, Just a little… Dizzy.” I said, and slid back to the floor. I kneeled and that helped my head a little, or at least it stopped spinning.

“Are you sure?” She asked, almost laughing at me. I nodded smiling now. I looked around. Our things were ready on the deck and I could see a huge warehouse building ahead of us. I stood, more slowly this time, and saw that we were still fifty feet from the dock. That warehouse was bigger than I thought.

“That’s our TransPort?” I asked and she nodded, having stood to stand next to me.

Liz stood by the railing at the bow on the starboard side. Like stood on the port side, and David was sitting next to our supplies, he was tightening a strap on a bag when he looked up. The shadow of the warehouse had fallen on us, as we pulled up to the dock. The building was even bigger than I thought it was.

Blake steered us carefully to the edge of the dock, and I took a step forward before Luke put his hand on my shoulder, stopping me. He smiled a little then walked forward, and picked up the rope I had been about to grab. Liz grabbed the other one and threw it towards the dock. It wrapped around the nearest dock and flew back to her. Luke threw his rope after hers, and she watched it, not even watching as she caught her own rope. His rope flew back towards him as well, except it hit Luke in the face. He didn’t even flinch; he just started pulling on the rope bringing us up to the dock, as the captain cut the engine.


Liz and Luke tied off the rest of the rope and lowered the ramp before coming over to our supplies and grabbing their own. The rest of us filed off the boat as Liz walked up to Blake. I couldn’t hear what passed between them, but then again, I didn’t stay to listen either.

We walked down the dock and were met by two soldiers. And they were quite the interesting couple; one wore Greek armored breast plate and helmet, while the other wore Roman armor. Both wore jeans and had sheathed swords at their hips, one like Riptide and the other like Hazel’s Spatha. We walked up to them and they stood their ground in the middle of the dock.

“Port Pass?” the Greek guy asked. I had to stop myself from laughing and asking whether or not it was supposed to by the other way around. Annabeth still squeezed my hand to remind me though. Luke stepped up to them while this happened, digging in his backpack. Both soldier’s hands twitched towards their swords but Luke had stopped with several feet still in between them. He pulled out a thin scroll and unrolled it… and unrolled it…. And continued to unroll it until the tiny little scroll was a three foot long parchment. He handed it to the Roman, who slowly looked over it and looked up at one of us every once and a while. He finally rolled up the parchment into- miraculously – the same little scroll.

“Credentials.” He said. Luke started digging in his bag again. And pulled out another small scroll. This one—however—only unfurled about six inches. As the soldier read it, his eyes widened. He kept looking at Annabeth and me, and then he finally rolled up the paper.

“Present.” He said, and held out his right arm. There—burned on to his arm—was crisscrossed hammers and two horizontal lines. I held out my own right arm, and presented my burned trident and eight horizontal lines. I find it funny that even though I was Greek, I somehow managed to stay a part of the twelfth legion. I also ended up being at camp Jupiter on the same day every year, most likely after some fight, so that I added another year to my service of the legion. Reyna and Frank still liked to tease me about being half-hearted in my “little rescues” as they call them.

The soldier nodded and signaled to the other to let them pass. He nodded and they both turned and walked us down the dock. They stopped at the end and let us pass, but not before I heard them talking.

“Who were they?”

“Some Greeks on a quest.”

“Greeks? Why did he have the tattoo?”

“Percy Jackson.”

“Oh. So I guess that was Annabeth Chase?”

“Yep, and some others.”

“I can’t believe I was on duty when Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase came through… Oh Man; Damon’s going to be so jealous!”

I looked at Annabeth and smiled, and she grinned back. Luke looked at me funny, and I shook my head, trying to signal ‘explain later.’ He nodded so I assume he got it. We walked into the giant warehouse.

As it turned out it was an airplane hangar. There were even a few hanging from the ceiling from chains with links as big as I was. There was anything from a jet to a hot air balloon in this one giant room. It was so eerie quiet, that the beep from Luke’s pocket made all of us jump, even him. He pulled out a light bulb. He literally had a small watt light bulb in his pocket and it was simultaneously blinking and beeping a high pitched sound.

“That’s our call,” He said, “Follow me.” And we did, through the maze of airplanes, out a huge hanger door, and onto the tarmac. The bulb was beeping faster, and the blinking was turning into a constant glow. We saw a group of people moving in a line through a course of tables. We jogged up and joined them. Luckily we were not the last ones; other than us there were another half dozen stragglers. The plane was about twenty feet away and plated in celestial bronze, shining in the sunlight that slipped passed both the enormous storm clouds that still lingered, and the monstrous shadow cast by the warehouse.

With the stragglers there were about dozen and a half people on the plane as passengers. I saw three people getting on the plane, and laughing with each other, and I assumed they were the crew. All of them were dressed in all black and the two men had wicked looking swords on their belts. The woman with them had a long hunting knife strapped to her back. All I know was it didn’t look like any of them would be serving drinks to us.

We finally got far enough down the line to hear the instructions. A woman wearing a black suit and jacket, was giving instructions as people moved passed her.

“Pick up one of the duffle bags and take one of each of the provided supplies; Plate, cup, bowl, flat ware, Embrosia packets, Nectar canteen, Fire supplies, flares, and small Greek fire grenade.” She said it all so calm that I knew she did this every day, several times a day. She looked happy though. A little worn around the edges, but she looked content. I saw a lot of adult demigods, now that I know what to look for, and she was one of them. We were happy to still be alive and have some semblance of calm in our lives; I could relate.

All five of us filled our little duffle bags and—like all the others—added them to our supplies. There was one thing I was confused about; considering that the supplies given weighed less than five pounds, how come the bag felt more like ten? Then I saw the yellow tag on the bottom.

‘Duffle bag doubles as emergency parachute. If needed, pull red tag and cord after strapped in to retractable harness.’ Comforting.

We loaded on to the plane soon after that. I put my things above my head, helped Annabeth, sat down and practically tied myself to the seat. She chuckled a little but put her hand on top of my own, which at the time was clenched around the arm rest between us. She was smart though, not telling me it was going to be all right. All of us knew that something could and probably would happen.

I closed my eyes during takeoff and held them closed for several minutes afterward. Before I knew it, the turbulence started, bumping the plane up and down, and rattling the windows. I was on edge, ready to strap on the parachute and jump out of the plane myself. Then the lightning started, bright enough to see through my eyelids. I flinched every time I heard the thunder, waiting for the plane to get struck down. All rational thought left me when I was on planes. As you can see, I could only think the worst. Then the beeping started. I opened my eyes and looked to find Annabeth listening to the beeping and looking around. There was a Hephaestus screen on the back of the seats in front of us and Greek words started streaming down one while Latin scrolled down the other I turned to Annabeth’s to read the Greek. I translated as I read:

Προσοχή ! ακραίες αναταράξεις μπορεί να προκαλέσει την ανάγκη ενός προσγείωση έκτακτης ανάγκης. Πόρπη ζώνες σας και τοποθετήστε όλα τα bellongings underneith το κάθισμα που βρίσκεται μπροστά σας . Σας ευχαριστούμε για την υπομονή σας .

‘Warning! Extreme turbulence may cause the necessity of an emergency landing. Buckle your seatbelts and stow all belongings underneath the seat in front of you. Thank you for your patience.’ Very comforting.

I looked around and saw others very calmly packing away their things, and buckling seatbelts. Luke sat in front of me and Liz sat across the aisle, firmly gripping David’s reddening fingers. A part of my mind wondered if he could still feel them.

I got unbuckled and stood. Annabeth looked at me and smiled reassuringly. The ‘hostess’ looked up at me, but went back to here cupboards and didn’t make any move towards me. I walked to the front of the little plan, and stepped up to the cabin door. I knocked.

“Come on in.” I heard and opened the door.

“Sorry, but can you tell me where we are right now?” I said and I am pretty sure They were startled. Probably expecting the women.

“We are currently about twenty miles off the coast of France.” Stated, after looking at several dials and a map.

“Thanks.”

“Mind telling me what you plan to do with that information?” The co-pilot asked.

“It all depends. Do you have an airlock-type-room?” I asked still in front of the door. The captain and co-pilot looked at each other, and hen after a few more seconds, the pilot sighed.

“Back of the plane. Just make sure the door is locked, and warn Maria before you jump.” I nodded, then remembered that neither of them could see me.

“I will. Thank you.”

“No problem.” The co-pilot said pushing a call button. “Maria there is passenger requesting access to the airlock.”

“airlock?” I heard over a radio.

“Yup.” Then he turned to me, “just you?”

“Five of us.”

“Five total. Copy?” He asked into the radio again.

“Got it.” She replied.

“You’re all set.” Captain said, and I saw now that he was barely older than I was.

“Thank you.” I said again. I opened the door and walked back towards my seat. I desperately hoped that that whole conversation wasn’t code for ‘tie this crazy person to a seat and gag him.’ Then again this was an all demigod flight. They’ve probably heard crazier than ‘let me jump out of this plane.’

I made it back to my seat and gestured to David and Luke. Annabeth was already grabbing our supplies from underneath the chairs. Elizabeth gipped David’s hand until his fingers turned blue, but he let her hold on. We all walked single file to the back of the plane, past the bathrooms, to a curtain. I pulled it lightly aside, and found a small hallway. We walked down it and found ‘Maria’ fiddling with a couple of very important looking dials and switches.

“Just get your parachutes ready. Everything else is taken care of. Do I need to prep you for landing? Do you have any questions?” She asked never looking away from the shiny console.

“C3 is too high. Bring it down by two.” Annabeth said, as we all started strapping on the chutes. Maria froze-and I prayed to Zeus that she was not about to smack Annabeth, then looked at one of the paneling strips and examined it. She moved a dial to the right and then went back to her work.

“Thanks.” She said and Liz smiled at Annabeth. We finished getting the strapped in and Annabeth walked over to me and tightened a strap on my right shoulder. I grinned at her, but even I knew it was forced. Maria turned to us, nodded and left- a heavy looking metal door sliding closed behind her.

“We’re over the Atlantic. About a mile out from France. That’s where we need to be, right?” I asked. Liz nodded, and she looked terrified.

I hit the button to open the door and wind rushed into the cabin.

“All right.” I yelled, “red cord first, yellow when we land. Got it?” Everyone nodded.

“Count to twenty then let the chutes out.” I said and jumped out the door, pulling off a pretty awesome swan dive, if I do say so myself. In seconds Annabeth was twenty feet to my right, and Luke at my left. I counted in my head—ten…eleven… twelve… I looked for Liz but still couldn’t see her, or David. I assumed they were behind me. Nineteen… Twenty. I pulled the red cord and a small chute erupted from the pack, slowing me down infinitesimally. Then the second chute erupted, and I stopped falling. The impact of the chute against the speeding air jarred my shoulders and set my teeth on edge. I grabbed the two steering cords and looked around. I could see them, everyone at different heights, but I could still see four parachutes.

I floated down until we were about thirty feet from the waves. Sharks were already circling. I tried to mentally tell them to back off, but before I could think a word, they turned and swam away. Liz. She was probably closer to them than I was. My feet touched the ocean and I pulled the yellow cord. The Parachute was reeled back in. I really loved some of the Hephaestus inventions.

I swam towards Annabeth who was trying to stay above water. She grinned, but she was busy kicking and trying to pull the yellow cord. I pulled the cord and held on to her waist, holding us both up. I looked around and saw Luke already swimming towards the shore about a hundred feet away. Liz and David were right behind him. I looked at Annabeth.

“You need a minute?” She asked, before I could manage to get the words out. I shook my head and started swimming, towards the shore.

Notes

Sorry it's taking me so long to write them, guys.
I hope I am making up fro it with the long chapters.
message me some ideas for other crazy things they will have to do as they trek across Europe to Greece! I love your Ideas!

thanks!

~LCCabin3