The Legend of Percy: Book 2 - Through Grief

23. The Landing (Dramatic but Honestly Not My Worst)

A/N: I'm back!! With a new chapter! A lot longer than the previous. Apologies for the cliffhanger, but it's just the best way to approach how these chapters are structured. Also... Rick [Riordan] does worse. The reasoning for the long delay was my laptop broke. Completely not allowing me to use it. I lost a chapters worth of writing and had to rewrite it from memory. It isn't this chapter, but I also lost a bunch of edited chapters that I had to redo. I don't know about an update schedule from now into the future, but I appreciate all of you who are sticking with it. This is most definitely not over, and won't be for a very long time.

Katara desperately pulled at the water. It was getting harder and harder to stave of panicked breaths. The whole crew was getting anxious, and she knew that the other ships would be even worse. They didn't have Hakoda like hers did.

She saw Aang out of the window doing something similar to her, and Appa flailing about in the water, both unable to move.

What the waterbender did feel, was the water churning past them. Out of pure curiosity more than anything else, she looked behind the Avatar. Back where they had come from, there was no more fire lighting up the Gates of Azulon. At least, none that they could see. And from Katara's perspective, it looked like the water had risen significantly.

The Water Tribe girl paused in her attempts to waterbend and stared.

"Um, dad?" She began, only to feel the whole sub rock.

It was their first movement since they'd stopped so the whole crew stumbled. She saw the elevated level of water from behind them pass over and then the ship shot forward. Out of the window, all the others had moved as well.

"Katara, can you waterbend?!" Her dad yelled over the noise of crashing armour and the groaning ships, trying to keep his balance.

"No!" She replied, holding herself against the wall and trying to move her arms. "It's like something grabbed us!"

"It's-!"

Toph had to stop as the Duke offered her his helmet to throw up in. She wiped her mouth.

"Percy. It must be Percy." She finished.

Katara couldn't help but agree.

But why is he going against the invasion plan? Or at least changing it.

She looked up ahead of them. The large wave cast a shadow below and behind it as they sped towards the Fire Nation capital.

"Well, whatever it is, we have to be ready." Hakoda yelled out. "Everyone to their positions. Earthbenders in your tanks and soldiers be ready! It seems this is going to be an even rougher ride in than we were expecting!"

Katara looked to the side of her as all their forces gathered. Her father and brother stood on either side of her. She looked at Sokka, who was gripping his sword way too tightly, his knuckles completely white.

Her placed her hand on his hand and he gave her an appreciative nod. The waterbender heard him let out a shaky breath as she turned back to the front of the ship, where they expected to land. The ship strained in the tumbling water as they looked to be coming closer to the land.

~~~~~

Percy looked behind him at the Gates of Azulon, moving further and further away. The four boats he'd left behind bobbed behind the now-extinguished chains. Cracks and strains were left in the statue from his wave powering over the top of it. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he fought to keep both the subs and his ship upright and moving in the right direction.

The demigod looked over the crest of the wave to see Harbour City. There was a stone wall that was able to control entry to the docks. The young man could see over the towers to the battlements, piers and slipway. He was thankful that most people were smart enough to have evacuated themselves in the minutes it had taken to build up the wave.