𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒 - jason grace

21. ELLA HAS A CRUSH

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐀𝐙𝐄𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐊 ran up to them, Percy said, "Hey," like they were just meeting for lunch or something.

"You're alive!" Frank marveled.

Percy frowned. "The fall? That was nothing. I fell twice that far from the St Louis Arch."

"You did what?" Hazel asked.

"Once again, I am not surprised." Maia muttered. She shivered a bit. She wasn't soaked to the bone anymore, which was a relief, but her hair was still damp, and her shirt was still sticking to her. Percy had done whatever his Poseidon kid magic was to dry her up a bit, because of Maia's tendency toward... misfortune, it didn't really work out as it should've, and that wasn't making things easier for her.

"Never mind. The important thing was I didn't drown."

"So the prophecy was incomplete!" Hazel grinned. "It probably said something like: The son of Neptune will drown a whole bunch of ghosts."

Percy shrugged. He was still looking at Frank like he was miffed. "I got a bone to pick with you, Zhang. You can turn into an eagle? And a bear?"

"And an elephant," Hazel said proudly.

"An elephant." Percy shook his head in disbelief. "That's your family gift? You can change shape?"

Frank shuffled his feet. "Um ... yeah. Periclymenus, my ancestor, the Argonaut – he could do that. He passed down the ability."

"And he got that gift from Poseidon," Percy said. "That's completely unfair. I can't turn into animals."

Frank stared at him. "Unfair? You can breathe underwater and blow up glaciers and summon freaking hurricanes – and it's unfair that I can be an elephant?"

Percy considered. "Okay. I guess you got a point. But next time I say you're totally beast –"

"Just shut up," Frank said. "Please."

Percy cracked a smile.

"If you guys are done," Hazel said, "we need to go. Camp Jupiter is under attack. They could use that gold eagle."

"Yeah, can we please get out of here? Also, does anyone have an extra shirt or something?" Maia added.

Frank handed her one. She motioned for the trio to turn around, so she could, you know, change shirts really fast.

Percy nodded. "One thing first, though. Hazel, there's about a ton of Imperial gold weapons and armor at the bottom of the bay now, plus a really nice chariot. I'm betting that stuff could come in handy ..."

It took them a long time – too long – but they all knew those weapons could make the difference between victory and defeat if they got them back to camp in time. Hazel used her abilities to levitate some items from the bottom of the sea. Percy swam down and brought up more. Even Frank helped by turning into a seal, which was kind of cool, though Percy claimed his breath smelled like fish.

It took all four of them to raise the chariot, but finally they'd managed to haul everything ashore to a black sand beach near the base of the glacier. They couldn't fit everything in the chariot, but they used Frank's rope to strap down most of the gold weapons and the best pieces of armor.

"It looks like Santa's sleigh," Frank said. "Can Arion even pull that much?"

Arion huffed.

"Hazel," Percy said, "I am seriously going to wash your horse's mouth with soap. He says, yes, he can pull it, but he needs food."

Hazel picked up an old Roman dagger, a pugio. It was bent and dull, so it wouldn't be much good in a fight, but it looked like solid Imperial gold.

"Here you go, Arion," she said. "High-performance fuel."