Wearing A Sign

Chapter 16

Percy POV

Piper and I booked it out of my cabin, running on Katie's heels. This couldn't actually being happening, things finally falling into place. We were going to find Grover, we were going to win the war, we were going to win! "Piper, do you really think they found them? I mean it just seems so surreal" I whispered. "I don't know Perc, all we can do right now is see what Katie found" she replied. Piper kept glancing back as we were running, like something was following her "You're worried about Jason, aren't you" I said braking the silence, she nodded "and Annabeth, she must have been really out of it when Will was stitching her up"
"What do you mean?"
"Well when I asked her to name 3 countries in the Northern Hemisphere she said Canada, Mexico, and North America..."
"And thats a problem because...."
"North America is a continent not a country! I didn't have the heart to brake it too her"
"oh gotcha now, I'm running on 40 minutes of sleep cut me some slack"
"haha, 6 hours right here"
"oh shut up"
Katie cut us off "If you two are done fighting, we're here." "You and Travis aren't any better you have no room talk" Piper laughed. "Okay fine, but come look at this" Katie smiled. She walked over to a near by tree and pulled one of the flowers from the ground. "What's so special about the flower?" I asked. "It's not the flower, its the hole the flower left" Katie said pointing to the base of the tree. I got down on my hands and knees to get a closer look  and sure enough there was something under the tree, I just couldn't tell what it was. Then I heard it, a faint 'help!' was coming from the hole, the voice was familiar it sounded a little bit like "Grover!" I shouted into the dirt. "Percy!" he yelled back "Percy its Juniper, she's worse! We need help out of here!" "I can help with that" Katie said. "Wait how?" I asked. "Demeter kids aren't just used for growing flowers you know, watch this." With one swift motion of her hand the ground started to move upwards. A 15 by 20 foot rectangle started to raise away from the ground, "How are you doing this?" I heard Piper ask. " It's the roots of the trees really, not me I'm just telling them the thicken and grow upwards. Pushing whatever Grover and everyone else is trapped in up to the surface" Katie replied. The box was just about all the way risen when Grover and Chiron climbed out. "Grover!" I yelled running up to him "Percy!" He shouted back. "Chiron you're okay!" I said. "Yes Percy I'm fine but the camp is not, please excuse me. I have some business to attend too." Chiron said then galloped away.
I turned back to Grover "you're okay!"
"Yeah I am, but they're not" he said pointing back to the box. "we need to get the naiads back to the water and the nymphs back to their trees or we are going to have a lot of shrewds to burn"
"Okay uh, Me and Katie take the Naiads, you and Piper take the nymphs?"
"Sounds great, lets go!"
There are a lot more Naiads in the lake than you think, but for he first time in what felt like forever I actually had a plan. "Katie, I think I can control the water from here, I can make a moving assembly line thing we can put the Naiads on it and float them back into the lake. What do you think" I said. "I think its worth a try" Katie said. I pointed my hand in the direction of lake and called the water to come to me, within seconds the water was following from the lake right up to the side of the box. Katie and I got right to work, putting Nymph after Nymph onto the water, with the 2 of us working we got all of the Nymphs back into the lake in under 5 minutes. The only problem was lifting person after person onto a water convertor belt that your controlling tends to wear down on you. As we were walking back to Grover and Piper, Katie looked up at me "Hey, you're really pale you sure you're okay?" "Yeah yeah, I'm fine. The lifting and water stuff take a lot out of me sometimes" I said kind of waving off the thought. Sure I was tired as Hades but I had more important things to worry about than my own health at the moment. Grover and Piper meant us in the middle of a field, "Woah Percy, you look whiter than Nico in the winter" Grover laughed. "Thanks Grover I really needed that" I smiled "Hey thats what I'm here for" "Juniper okay?" "Yeah she'll be fine, tired for a few days but fine. Hey where is Annabeth anyway, why did Piper come with you?" "Oh uh, she's sleeping in my cabin" "Sleeping? Why, there's a war going on" "Uh That General put a bullet threw her side, sh-she was trying to protect me" I heard Katie gasp from behind me. "Oh oh, I'm sorry Percy, is she okay?" "Yeah, stitched up and sleeping" "Okay" Piper said braking our conversation "shall we go kick some General behind, Jackson?" "Yes we shall, McLean" I laughed "Underwood, Gardener, would you care too come and share the butt whooping of the U.S. army." "I would be delighted" Katie laughed. "same here" Grover said. "Then do it" I said.