The Ambassador of Athena

10 minutes later we were on our way south-west to Camp Jupiter. According to Leo we had to take a detour due to bad weather, so we would fly over Arizona to pass the thunderstorms raging in the north. Jessy was in the sick bay, Oracle-Rachel taking care of him. Since there were now two Rachels I’ve decided to call one Oracle-Rachel and the other one just Rachel, it’s easier for everyone. He got hit pretty badly, but the odds were not against him. Johanna was also badly beaten up, her jeans were torn, her shirt had burnt holes and the cut on her cheek hasn’t stopped bleeding, so she lay in the other bed in the sickbay. Personally I felt fine, though I feared there would be some pretty interesting colours showing on my body the next few days, and a few scratches on my arms looked pretty bad too.
I was leaning over the railing and looked into the distance when Jason came over to me.
“So, what is the plan?” he asked and leaned next to me.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Honestly I have no idea. I have no idea where they go, what they want to do with the statue, what we should do…”
My head felt heavier and heavier.
‘He wants to destroy the statue., but according to Chiron it would take a huge amount of energy to destroy it. Where do you get that much energy?...”

The afternoon passed when we flew over Arizona, Utah and Nevada till we saw a big lake glittering in the distance.
“The Hoover dam” Percy said and smiled. “This is where Rachel and I first met. What a dam adventure.”
Rachel laughed. “Yeah, you dam frightened me.”
They both cracked down laughing, leaving me and Leo staring at them. When they calmed down enough they explained how Percy passed here when he was on a quest to save Artemis and Annabeth and got almost killed by shadowy skeletons.
“But to be honest, I was mainly on that quest to save Annabeth, in retrospective.” He added in the end.
Rachel smiled. “Boys. I know why Annabeth always calls you Seaweed Brain.”
Percy looked offended
“Hey, I am not that bad at college! And oceanography isn’t that easy!”
Rachel laughed. “You can talk to me about difficult after you started studying law, that’s way more difficult than fish-talk.”
That was the point when Leo and I lost it. It was just to ridiculous: The world was about to end, and these two had nothing better to do than quarrelling about which subject was more difficult.
An argument from Percy brought me back to reality:
“Did you know that Hawaii is a volcanic group of Islands?”
“Everyone knows that!”
“But did you know that the biggest active volcano in the whole northern hemisphere is on Hawaii? Hephaestus even has his summer forge there, at Mount…”
I interrupted him.
“Wait, repeat that last sentence for me!”
Percy looked puzzled.
“Hephaestus has his summer…”
“No, the one with the volcano.”
“The biggest active volcano is on Hawaii”
I turned around and ran to the helm.
The control panel was loaded with stuff, but underneath it I could find an IPad. I pulled it out and activated Siri.
“Siri, what is the biggest active lava pit on Hawaii?”
The program answered in no time.
“The biggest active lava pit on Hawaii is the Kilauea caldera.”
“Calculate the route to the caldera”
“Calculating route…”
The screen showed me that it would take us almost 16 hours to get to Hawaii, even by full speed. I called for Leo, and when he stood next to me I told him:
“Bring us to Hawaii, it’s not over yet!”
Leo looked confused, but he pushed a few buttons, plugged the IPad in and the ship reared south.
“Flo, could you please explain to us why on earth we are flying to Hawaii now?”
Rachel asked when I went back to them.
I sat down on the planks and started explaining.
“See, the statue can only be destroyed with so much force that explosives or great falls would not harm it, according to Chiron. But what has more power than explosives?”
Percy’s face brightened up.
“Lava! If you threw it into lava it would definitely be enough to destroy it.”
“Exactly. And this is why we are flying 16 hours to Hawaii.”

Notes

Two today, I hope you like them ;)