Blood of Olympus FanFic {completed}

12: FRANK (part 1)

CH 12- FRANK

"After her!" cried Hazel.

Frank, Hazel, and Leo bounded to the door. They turned towards Jason, who kneeling next to injured Piper. She looked so terrible Frank felt like fainting; El, (no wait, Helen) had stabbed her near the midsection, and blood was gushing out. Piper had been maimed by her own weapon.

Jason looked terrified. He pressed his hand to her stomach. "Go," he said, his voice sounding hoarse. "I’ll take care of Piper. Don't worry." They hesitated, but seeing the warning look in his eyes, took off silently. 

As Frank left the mess hall, behind him, he heard Leo tell Jason, "Tiny detail I thought you should know before we leave: Percy's half-dead. See ya!" and left before Jason could respond.

Frank stood at the base of the stairs, immobile. He wasn’t sure if he’d heard right. “Percy’s half-dead?” he repeated.

Leo caught up to him and glared. “Yes dead! What’s so hard to understand about that? Now, go! I’ll explain later, if we’re not dead by then.” Frank noticed how Leo didn’t even bother to joke about Frank’s ignorance. But he was right; if they wasted any more time, Helen might be gone. Gone where? Frank didn’t know. They were situated in the middle of the ocean.  Besides the ship, there was nowhere to go.

They ran up the stairs in a hurry. Hazel and Helen were on the quarterdeck, in the middle of a duel. They both looked equally matched. Helen muttered curses, probably trying to distract Hazel, but Hazel wasn’t fazed.

Helen had her back turned on the boys. She didn’t seem to realize they were there. Hazel glanced in their direction, but she kept her composure and pretended she hadn’t seen them.

Frank took an arrow from the quiver strapped to his back, notched it in the bow, and aimed. Right before shooting it, he hesitated. Killing Helen would feel like murder. She wasn’t really a monster after all. Just because Gaea had “resurrected” her didn’t mean she would crumble to dust like most monsters did.

Instead, he concentrated on transforming into an animal he knew pretty well, even thought he’d only seen one in a zoo his mother had taken him to when he was little. His arms and legs elongated, his hands and feet turning into paws into sharp claws. (A/N OMG that rhymes!) His nose was replaced with a snout, and he grew a long red and black striped tail. Frank Zhang had morphed into a full-grown tiger.

Leo made a strangled sound, as if he was choking on something. Frank ignored it, and pounced on Helen of Troy. She only had a second to turn around and realize she would be the next meal of a panthera trigris. Frank didn’t have those kind of intentions, though.

He landed right on top of her (A/N sorry, that sounds wrong), pining her arms to the deck, and growled in her face. Her eyes shown pure fear. It was probably the first time a tiger had attacked her, so her fear was understandable. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his side. Hazel cried out. Stupid! He’d forgotten to disarm Helen. Frank looked quickly behind him. She still held Katopris tightly in her hand, the blade covered in blood, which could only explain one thing: she’d stabbed him in his side. Her evil sneer confirmed that suspicion.

Tiger Frank rolled away, and transformed back to Normal Frank. He put his hand to his side. It felt warm and wet. Yep. Definitely a serious wound. But for the moment, he couldn’t concentrated on that. They needed to stop Helen from getting away with Piper’s knife.

Hazel ran to him and helped him up. He felt embarrassed; she shouldn’t be the one helping him. He was now the praetor on New Rome. His job was to protect people, not have people protect him. Despite that, he took her hand with a thanks and heaved himself up.