forest green ● jason grace

twenty-two

 Daria and Percy were waiting on the edge of the glacier. Percy was leaning on the staff with the golden eagle, gazing down at the wreckage he'd caused: several hundred acres of newly open water dotted with icebergs from the ruined camp.

Daria was pissed. She was soaking wet and it was, shocker, still freezing. Sure, she had given Percy her consent to be dropped into the ocean below, but he couldn't summon a bubble or something?

The only remains on the glacier were the main gates, which listed sideways, and a tattered blue banner lying over a pile of snow-bricks. When Frank and Hazel ran up to him, Percy said, "Hey," like they were just meeting for lunch..

''You're alive!" Frank marveled.

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

"Could've died." Daria muttered.

"You did what?" Hazel asked.

"Freezing cold. Oh yeah, no problem. Let's just kill Daria."

"Shut up. The important thing was we 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?"

"He won't stop talking about it," Daria shivered.

"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. "Urn... 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."

Percy nodded. "One thing first, though. Hazel, Daria, 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.

Daria and Hazel used their 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."