Percy Jackson's Sister

Take the Metal Out of Your Brother

           To my surprise, I was not faced with immediate death.

         At first, I thought it was shock, but then I took another breath. And another. Percy was right, I could breathe underwater.

        My first thought was this is sick! But then I realized why I was down here. Our ship had exploded, with Tyson at the source of the explosion.

      Sure, he was fireproof, but I don't think even a cyclops could survive that type of pressure and impact.

     I looked at my hand and wriggled my fingers. My body still sort of functioned but I had bruises and cuts all over me.

    A small glitter at the ocean floor caught my attention. It was the same thing I had seen at the beach when Hermes sent us on our quest. I compacted myself into a ball to make myself sink faster.

     I felt the sand hit my body and stretched out my arms and legs. I picked up the glittering item. At my touch, it began to faintly glow.

     I tried wiping some of the rust off but my concentration turned above sea.

    Someone was hitting the water in a pattern, sending the waves down to where I was.

    I began to swim upwards following the pattern. It was morse code. C. A. S. It was just that, over and over again. Annabeth was trying to find me.

     I surfaced and saw the life boat, one blonde girl trying to sew together a make shift sail and punching the water.

    "Ann-" I yelled and my voice cracked. "Annabeth!"

     She turned around and smiled, she began paddling the boat with her hands but just seemed to be pushing further away. I willed the water to pull her towards me, and that took the last bit of strength I had left in me.

    Annabeth extended her hand and helped me on board. Percy was lying down on a pile made from our bags. He was unconscious and was also hurt all over.

     "You heard my morse code!" Annabeth said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

     "Yeah, kinda hard to miss when you pack a punch that strong," I told her.

     She smiled, proud of herself. I then processed why our boat didn't feel complete.

    "Tyson?" I asked.

     Her smile faded and her face dropped. "I'm sorry, Cas."

     I bit my lip and nodded, I wanted to cry but it was not the time or place.

    I examined Percy and lifted his arm.

   "What are you doing?" Annabeth asked.

   "He has shrapnel in his arm, we have to get it out," I said, reaching for the emergency kit.

    "How are you gonna do that?" She asked.

     "Magnet."

     "Uh, not to ruin your plans but I don't think a magnet would be in an emergency pack."

    "Of course not," I snorted.

    "Then... what are you looking for?"

    "This."

     I dumped tape and a battery on the deck. Annabeth looked at me as if I was speaking a different language.

    "Just get the sail up," I said. "I'll get the metal out of Percy."

    "With duct tape?" She asked.

    "Just trust me," I said. She turned back to her sail, made from confederate soldier uniforms. She grabbed a huge metal pole and began to slip the sail on it.

    I looked around and spotted the engine. I patted my pockets looking for something to open the panel. Then I looked down at my wrist and my bracelet was there.

    Last time I remembered, it was a sword and it flew out of my hand before I hit the water. Somehow it was back on my wrist.

     When my sword sprung to life, I used it to open the panel. I looked at all the wires and found the one I was looking for. It wasn't essential to the boat, so I cut it.

    "What are you doing?" Annabeth ran to my side, letting go of the pole she was propping up. It fell and it was headed straight towards Percy.

    "Annabeth, don't!" I extended my hand towards the pole and the water immediately hit against it and pushed it in a different direction. That one movement blew me backwards and I fell straight on my butt.

    Annabeth and I looked at the pole, then at Percy, then at each other, our mouths gaped open.

    After about ten seconds of processing, we both burst out laughing. Yes, we had almost crushed one of our best friends but in the middle of all the danger, we had to admit, it was kind of funny.

    "Why are you messing with that, won't it break the boat?"

    "Nah," I said. "There's a lot of copper wires, I just have to cut another one, fuse those together, and it should function normally."

    "Should?" Annabeth asked, incredulously.

    "Improvise or die, right?" I shrugged. "You think you can use your dagger to get out one of those nails?"

    I walked over to my duct tape and battery. Annabeth handed me the nail she had pried from the boat. I began carefully wrapping the copper wire along the nail.

    "They can't overlap, but they have to touch," I explained. "It creates a magnetic field that will be activated when I tape it to that battery over there."

   "Where'd you learn to do this?" Annabeth sounded amazed.

   "My grandpa taught me," I said.

    I handed the tape to Annabeth, "Tape the end of the wire to the positive side of that battery."

    She did as I asked her and I shrunk my sword and tested out my magnet. As soon as the nail got close to my wrist, the bracelet pulled on my arm and stuck to the nail.

    "It worked!" I said.

     We both walked towards Percy. He was still unconscious so he wouldn't feel it.

    "Here, hold up his arm," I told Annabeth.

    As Annabeth held his arm I slowly ran the nail across his arm. There were little flinches here and there and Annabeth got worried.

    "Cassidy, he's waking up," she said.

    "No, it's just his nervous system reacting to the magnetic pull. It's kinda painful taking metal out of your arm, Annabeth," I said.

    After a couple minutes, we had all the metal out of Percy's arm and into a Ziploc bag. We bandaged it up with whatever Annabeth hadn't used for our sail, which was working well enough.

    We sailed through the sea, Annabeth manning the sail and me guiding her. After a moment, Percy began to stir.