NEVER BE THE SAME . . . percy jackson

one hundred and sixteen: the final countdown.

SO MUCH FOR a tender farewell.

The last Brooklyn saw of her father, Zeus was a hundred feet tall, holding the Argo II by its prow. He boomed, "HOLD ON!"

Then he tossed the ship up and spiked it overhand like a volleyball. Man, Brooklyn missed playing volleyball.

If she hadn't been strapped to the mast with one of Leo's twenty-point safety harnesses, she would have disintegrated. As it was, her stomach tried to stay behind in Greece and all the air was sucked out of her lungs.

The sky turned black. The ship rattled and creaked. The deck cracked like thin ice under Brooklyn's feet and, with a sonic boom, the Argo II hurtled out of the clouds.

"Jason! Brooks!" Leo shouted. "Hurry!"

Her fingers felt like melted plastic, but she managed to undo the straps.

Leo was lashed to the control console, desperately trying to right the ship as they spiraled downward in free fall. The sails were on fire. Festus creaked in alarm. A catapult peeled away and lifted into the air. Centrifugal force sent the shields flying off the railings like metal Frisbees.

Wider cracks opened in the deck as Brooklyn and Jason staggered towards the hold, using the winds to keep them anchored.

If they couldn't make it to the others . . . Brooklyn pulled on the door with her wind powers, and the hatch burst open. Frank and Hazel stumbled through, pulling on the guide rope they'd attached to the mast. Piper, Annabeth and Percy followed, all of them looking disoriented.

"Go!" Leo yelled. "Go, go, go!"

For once, Leo's tone was deadly serious.

They'd talked through their evacuation plan, but that slap across the world had made Brooklyn's mind sluggish. Judging from the others' expressions, they weren't in much better shape.

Buford the table saved them. He clattered across the deck with his holographic Hedge blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"

Then his tabletop split into helicopter blades and Buford buzzed away.

Frank changed form. Instead of a dazed demigod, he was now a dazed grey dragon. Hazel climbed onto his neck. Frank grabbed Percy and Brooklyn in his front claws, then spread his wings and soared away.

The ground wasn't much less chaotic.

As they plummeted, Brooklyn saw a vast army of monsters spread across the hills — two-headed men, wild centaurs, ogres and others she couldn't even name — surrounding two tiny islands of demigods. At the crest of Half-Blood Hill, gathered at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, was the main force of Camp Half-Blood along with the First and Fifth Cohorts, rallied around the golden eagle of the legion. The other three Roman cohorts were in a defensive formation several hundred yards away and seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack.

Giant eagles circled Brooklyn, screeching urgently, as if looking for orders. They also surrounded Jason, who was flying nearby with Piper and Annabeth.

"Hazel!" Jason yelled. "Those three cohorts are in trouble! If they don't merge with the rest of the demigods—"

"On it!" Hazel said. "Go, Frank!"

Dragon Frank veered to the left with Brooklyn in one claw yelling, "Weeeeee!" and Percy in the other claw screaming, "I hate flying!"

They landed and the cohorts cheered, saluting Frank before turning back to fight. Brooklyn got her club and turned to Percy, grinning at him.

"Bet I'll kill more monsters than you," she dared him.

"In your dreams, Hayward." They charged into battle side by side.