the great wave | percy jackson

𝑥𝑖𝑖𝑖 - perseus

The next morning, Percy woke up to a different ship's horn–a blast so loud it literally shook him out of bed.

"Not again," he heard Ash groan from behind him as he staggered around trying to find a shirt. He threw open his cabin door just to run straight into Jason in the hall. "Oof," they both uttered, Percy rubbing his forehead as he practically felt his skull reverberate from where Jason's hard-ass head had hit it.

"You..." the boy began, then saw Ash coming out of his room. He sputtered and pointed behind him, and Percy began to wave his hands in front of his face trying to make up an excuse when Piper came out of the room behind him.

"Jason?" She asked, rubbing her eyes.

Now it was Percy's turn to gape and point, and for a second, they both stood there like that Spiderman meme, while Ash peeked around his shoulder curiously.

"Good morning?"

The horn boomed again, making all four demigods jump, and with one final stare the boys mutually agreed not to say anything more. When they all ran above deck the others were gathering haphazardly, each looking about as disheveled as Percy did. Apparently the "shirt" he'd grabbed was actually a bronze chestplate, and his actual shirt had gone to Ash. Well he wasn't getting that back, that's for sure. Frank's Vancouver Winter Olympics tee was inside out and Annabeth's comb was still stuck in her tangled rat's nest of blonde hair. Meanwhile Leo had accidentally set himself on fire.

About a hundred yards to port, a massive cruise ship glided past. Tourists waved from at least fifteen rows of balconies while his very mature girlfriend enthusiastically used her whole body to wave back, jumping up and down. Some of them were taking pictures, looking totally unsurprised at the sight of an Ancient Greek trireme before them. Maybe the Mist made them look like a particularly cute fishing boat, or perhaps the cruisers thought they were a tourist attraction.

The ship blew its horn again, and the Argo II shuddered like it was having a fit.

Coach Hedge plugged his ears. "Do they have to be so loud?"

"They're just saying hi," Frank speculated.

"WHAT?" Hedge yelled back at the same time Ash did: "HELLO!" Oh my. Percy was certainly awake now. The massive ship edged past them out to sea, tourists waving all the while. If they found their dreadnought battleship manned by yawning kids in armor and PJs strange, they didn't let on.

"Bye!" Leo called, raising a smoking hand.

"Can I man the ballistae?" Hedge asked.

"No," Leo said through a forced smile.

Ash had gone over to gape at the landscape that had emerged in the cruise ship's wake, clambering up on the rail and leaning so far out that Percy went over to make sure she didn't tip off the edge entirely. The others were starting to notice the scenery too, Piper gasping and Hazel rubbing her eyes as if she wasn't fully sure she wasn't still dreaming. "Oh wow. Where are... Wow."

Less than half a mile to the north, a mountain jutted from the sea, a massive fist of blinding white rock thrust victoriously into the sky. On one side, sheer cliffs dropped into the sea, which he now knew were made of limestone thanks to his Underworld counterpart, whose golden eyes sparkled in a way that rivaled the view they marveled at. On the other side, the mountain sloped in tiers of green forest, kind of like the back of a colossal sphinx, which Percy hated that he'd thought of.

"The Rock of Gibraltar," Annabeth said in awe. "At the tip of Spain. And over there–" she pointed south, to a more distant stretch of red and ochre hills. "That must be Africa. We're at the mouth of the Mediterranean."