ᑎᗴᗷᑌᒪᗩᗴ ➪ 𝙿.𝙹 + 𝙿.𝚂. + 𝙰.𝙲. [𝟸]

𝗙𝗜𝗩𝗘; 𝗕𝗢𝗬𝗙𝗥𝗜𝗘𝗡𝗗 𝗗𝗨𝗧𝗜𝗘𝗦

"𝗚𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗧." Percy handed the bucket of tar to Frank and kissed Polaris's temple. "You guys help Leo. I'll hold off the water spirits as long as I can."

"On it!" Frank promised.

Percy skedaddled up the stairs onto the deck. Hazel was right–the spirits of the lake were attacking the Argo. Luckily, they couldn't do much more than scratch the celestial bronze. Unluckily, they were beginning to unionize.

When they grouped together, they could gain more momentum. Upwards of five could gently rock the boat. Percy could see seventeen gearing up to go again.

Gleeson Hedge was at the prow of the ship, waving around his gnarled wooden bat, yelling threats at the water nymphs. Yeah, Percy could see how the satyr and Clarisse might get along.

"Hey, Coach?" Percy asked. "Could you stop harassing the spirits please?"

"Jackson!" the satyr said, like he'd accomplished something. "Don't worry! This is working!"

The seventeen water nymphs Percy had intended to stop built up enough force to shove the boat hard enough that Percy and Coach Hedge had to scramble to grab hold of the railing. The deck tilted underneath their feet and Hedge's hooves almost slipped.

"Go downstairs so I can handle this!"

"My bat is handling this!"

"It's really not!" Peeking over the side, Percy could see that almost every single water spirit had stopped attacking.

"See?" Hedge looked too smug.

The lake-women were approaching again, fast, and Hedge had left the railing like his yelling had done something.

Instead of responding to Hedge, Percy focused on protecting the Argo. He tugged on that something that was always just out of reach, and the water became much more pressured. He'd created a wall that the nymphs couldn't pass.

At the prow, the metallic dragon, Festus, creaked in appreciation.

"The dinosaur understands," Hedge said. "Jackson, I—"

A couple of nymphs slipped past Percy's fractured attention. The boat swayed and Percy almost stumbled over the other edge. Festus snorted fire and the nymphs scattered.

"The robots more helpful than you," Percy grumbled. He missed Grover.

He warded away a couple more attacks. The lake spirits were becoming increasingly violent. Eventually,  the ship creaked, Festus whirred, and they began to lift off. Hedge whooped.

Percy looked up to the sky and groaned.

𝗔𝗡 𝗛𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥, and Percy was shoveling magic pizza in his mouth and trying to enjoy his time without Coach Hedge. He had Polaris to his left and Annabeth to his right and he could watch the scenes of Camp Half-Blood shift on the wall. Things were going okay.

The crew compared notes on what had happened in Salt Lake City. Percy got to regale the others with his stories of surviving the old tar men in Home Depot. When he'd finished his story, his magic plate refilled with a completely blue slice of pie. For a moment, his hands stilled.

He hadn't seen his mom in months. He'd spent the better part of the year asleep, then with his whole crazy quest . . . He was really looking forward to this whole thing being over. Then he and his girlfriends could settle down, maybe. If they were ever allowed back into Camp Jupiter and New Rome.

"So where to now?" Leo asked with a mouthful of pizza. "I did a quick repair job to get us out of the lake, but there's still a lot of damage. We should really put down again and fix things right before we head across the Atlantic."