the great wave | percy jackson

𝑥𝑖𝑖 - perseus

He was woken by the ship tilting aggressively, nearly throwing Ash off the bed if he hadn't grabbed her by the hips. They had shifted sometime during their nap to be spooning, and Percy wanted nothing more than to just continue doing so, but he knew immediately that something was very wrong.

    "What's going on?" Ash gasped, kind of half-staggering, half-tumbling out of bed.

    "No clue," Percy answered, hopping around trying to get his shoes on. His girlfriend didn't even bother as they raced out of his cabin and up the stairs, the ship groaning worryingly beneath their feet.

    "Come on, Valdez!" They could hear Hedge yelling. "Take the wheel so I can get my baseball bat!"

    "A bat's not going to help!" Leo screamed back.

    Bursting their way out into the cold air, it was nighttime by now, Percy looked around wildly for the source of the problem. "What's happen--" His eyes alighted upon the huge monster ramming into the ship. It had a horrendously slimy pink face with glassy dead eyes, a gaping toothless maw, and a forest of tentacles sprouting from each nostril, making the bushiest nose beard Percy had ever had the displeasure to behold. It almost looked like...

    "Gah!" He yelped. "Shrimpzilla!"

    Ever the one to laugh at the wrong moment, Ash snorted from beside him but was quickly cut off by Shrimpzilla butting its head into the ship. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard and almost rolled off the side of the boat. Ash would have too if Percy hadn't steadied her for the second time in the past 2 minutes.

    Leo was at the helm, hands darting frantically across the controls as he tried to toggle the oars. Festus was making a racket clacking and clicking, but the oars (which doubled as spears) didn't seem to be working. Percy wondered desperately why he wasn't going for the ballistae; the thing definitely needed a good taste of Greek fire.

    "How did it get so close?" Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields.

    "I don't know!" Hedge snarled, still looking around for his bat. Percy saw that it had rolled across the quarterdeck, but decided to keep that information to himself.

    "I'm stupid!" Leo berated himself. "Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!"

    The ship titled farther to the right. Either the monster was trying to give them a hug, or it was about to capsize them.

    "Sonar?" Hedge demanded. "Pan's pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn't been staring into Hazel's eyes, holding hands for so long--"

"What?" Frank yelped. Percy's eyes widened, darting between the trio. This had been a frequent subject of him and Ash's tea sessions lately (literally, they drank tea together and gossiped); maybe there was something going on with Leo and Hazel. Yeah, he really wanted to know what, but recalled they had bigger things to worry about.

    "It wasn't like that!" Hazel protested.

    "It doesn't matter!" Piper said. "Jason, can you call some lightning?"

    Jason struggled to his feet. "I---" He only managed to shake his head. Ash blinked away from his side and reappeared to support him as he swayed in place, making Percy's gut lurch. Bigger things to worry about, he reminded himself. Judging by the shape Percy was in at the moment, Jason probably couldn't even pop a spark plug. He doubted he could even manage the smallest of waves.

    "Perce!" Ash called. "Can you talk to that... thing? Do you know what it is?"

    Percy had absolutely no idea. In all his five-odd years of being a demigod son of Poseidon, he'd never encountered anything like it. He was suddenly very glad he'd always made a point of never eating seafood, because the thing looked like a mixture of shrimp and catfish. Which would it taste like fried? He wondered.