The Beast of the Sea~Chapter 18

We began looking through piles and piles of scrap metal. Despite this being one of Hephaestus’ forges, it looked more like a dumb. There was just piles and piles of metal scraps and wires every ten feet it looked like. At one point Joe pulled a small pipe from the bottom of a pile and the whole thing collapsed.

“We could search through this stuff for a hundred years and not find anything,” Joe complained as he tossed the broken pipe back into the fallen pile.

“Well if we find the fountain that made you young again, then we could search for a hundred years,” Angel said with a laugh, but I could tell Joe didn’t find it nearly as funny.

“We may not have that long. Look at this,” I said as I pointed to a large calendar on the wall. Today’s date was circled and had Ares vs. Athena on it. “From the looks of it, the duel is sometime today.”

“Then we better get moving,” Joe said and ran toward the metal dragon. “Maybe there is something here that can help us find it.”

We looked around the dragon for awhile, but came up empty until Joe called us over to the main access panel of the dragon.

“Look at this,” he said, pointing to some greasy fingerprints on the panel. “These are regular human sized fingerprints. Hephaestus’ prints would look completely different I think, if gods even have fingerprints.”

“Then we shouldn’t be looking here, we should be looking outside,” I said. We began running for the nearest exit, which thankfully wasn’t the way we came in as I’m pretty sure those coconuts were waiting for us still. Who comes up with the idea for deadly coconuts anyway?

“By the way, I must thank you for coming up with the idea for the Coconut Perimeter System Swift, it worked like a charm, but I’ll have to improve their aim a bit,” I heard Hephaestus say from the other room, unintentionally answering my question. I’d have to ask Aisling to punch her dad later.

“Everyone, look!” Angel said and she pointed to the ground leading to the exit. Sure enough there was a trail of footprints leading out that weren’t ours.

“Looks like we found our thief,” Joe said and we quickly ran toward the exit door, which had a bright green light above it that said Exit. When we opened the door, we found ourselves on the other side of the island and a trail of footprints in the sand. “They head for the beach. Come on.”

We managed to follow the tracks most of the way into the forest. As we got to the beach, we heard the sounds of a girl struggling with something. We hid behind some bushes and looked over. There we saw a girl about my age trying to push a small rowboat back into the water. Then I took a look at the boat and saw the control circuit like the drawing sitting in the boat. I wasn’t sure why she stole it, but I pulled my sword out, ready for a fight.

“Sayuri!” Angel called and ran from behind the bush.

“Angel, what are you doing?” I asked her grabbing her arm.

“That is Sayuri Darling from camp. She is my friend from camp. Sayuri, over here!” Angel called again and my grip on her arm slipped. I followed closely behind Angel and the girl called Sayuri looked over at us. Angel looked all smiles, but the girl’s eyes were completely red in color.

“Angel get back!” I yelled. She looked confused but quickly fell to her feet to avoid a sword slash from the girl.

“Sayu, what are you doing?” Angel asked, sounding like she was in shock. “We’re friends.”

“All I know is that Captain Blackbeard instructed me to steal this as a gift for his father and destroy anyone that gets in my way,” Sayuri said, pointing her sword right at Angel. “Especially stupid little Naiads too far from their home.”

“Ash, grab the control circuit!” Joe yelled before blasting Sayuri backward with a gust of wind. I ran for the boat, but Sayuri got in my way. It didn’t really matter much as Joe slashed his sword with hers. The two began to fight and I slipped away. I made a quick dash for the boat and managed to pull the circuit from the ship easily enough.

“No! that belongs to Captain Blackbeard!” Sayuri yelled, but had to bring her attention back to Joe as he went in for another strike. Their swords collided and Sayuri lost her balance, falling into the warm sand.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Joe said, pointing his sword at her, similarly to how she had pointed it at Angel earlier.

“Well that makes one of us,” Sayuri said as she pulled a small knife from behind her and tossed it at Angel. Joe on reflex ran back toward Angel and pulled his own knife from a spot on his belt, flinging it forward and intercepting the girl’s knife, causing both to fly harmlessly into the ground. Meanwhile, Sayuri had gotten to her feet and was running for the boat. I went to stop her, but I didn’t have my weapon out and she threw another knife at me. I dodged it by falling to the ground and she ran past me, giving the boat on last shove and escaped into the sea.

“What was that all about?” I said out load. “Why would Ares want a control circuit anyway?”

“He doesn’t want it at all,” Joe said, collecting his knife from the sand. “He just wants Athena not to have it. That way he would win by default. However, he couldn’t steal it himself so he had his son do it, who in turn told one of his crewman to take it.”

“She isn’t one of his crewmen, that wasn’t her!” Angel yelled from her spot on the ground. I could tell she was upset and deeply confused by what had just happened. I think we all were actually.

“Then maybe we can help her somehow. Tell us, who was she?” I asked her. Angel was quiet for a few moments before taking a deep breath in.

“Alright, I’ll tell you,” she said. “It all started about a month ago, shortly after the Hunters beat the campers in Capture the Flag.”

 Flashback

“Darn those Hunters,” Sayuri said. “Do they really think I would join them after the beating they just gave us? They must be out of their mind.”

Sayuri looked at the small pamphlet the Hunters had given her, explaining how much fun it was to be a Hunter, but Sayuri wanted no part of it and tossed it into the lake.

“That is littering you know.”

“Who’s there?!” Sayuri said surprised, looking around for another camper when she should have been looking in the water.

“Oh calm down, it is just me,” came the voice of one of the lake naiads. The naiad looked at the girl sitting on the dock and thought she looked familiar for some reason. She looked kind of like the girl that used to be in charge of the Athena cabin, except she had brown hair. The naiad grabbed the pamphlet from the surface of the water and looked it over. “You know you really shouldn’t toss your trash in the lake. Some naiad may take offense to that.”

“Sorry, I was just a little angry is all,” Sayuri said. “We just lost to the Hunters again and then they had the nerve to ask me to join them.”

“Why not? I mean all the girls in this thing look like they’re having fun,” the naiad said as she opened it up and took another look.

“Well the biggest problem is that I don’t like to hunt. I love animals. There is this puppy that lives across the street from me named Wanta, but every time I see him I yell PUPPY! and he wags his tail. Plus, I don’t need to be a Hunter to hunt monsters,” Sayuri said proudly.

“Have you ever been on a quest?” the naiad asked, causing Sayuri to slump slightly.

“Well no, but I could if I wanted. I have heard some of the others talk about quests and read about a few in the scribe’s shed,” Sayuri said.

“Could you tell me about a few?” the naiad said.

From that day on, the two met every few days and talked about quests and stories. The naiad was always interested to hear about the world outside the camp, as she had never left the shores of the lake since the camp had been founded about 300 years ago. She had never even seen anything more advance than a cell phone, as most technology was banned from the camp for obvious reasons. In return, the naiad would tell Sayuri about some of the demigods that trained at the camp. People like Abraham Lincoln, Elvis, and even Katharine Hepburn. They became fast friends until one day…

“Hey, I got picked for a secret mission,” Sayuri said as she splashed her feet in the lake. “Chiron said that he is sending a team of demigods on a rescue mission. Apparently a few demigods went missing in the Sea of Monsters so we are going to take a ship to look after them. It should be exciting.”

“Is it really a secret mission if you’re telling me?” the naiad asked, earning a laugh from both of them.

“I guess not. Hey listen, I’ll be back in a few weeks so don’t get bored without me,” Sayuri said and the naiad agreed.

“Come back safe,” the naiad said and they said their goodbyes.

 End Flashback

“That was the last time I saw her,” Angel said and I thought I saw a tear drop from her eye. “At least until today. What could have happened?”

We were all speechless for awhile, but I also noticed something was bothering Joe.

“What’s up?” I asked him, but he was somewhat hesitant.

“I was also sent on a rescue mission to save a bunch of demigods, but judging by the time frame of Angel’s story, we were being sent to save Sayuri’s group,” Joe said.

“Who was on a mission to save another group,” I noticed. “Joe, how many groups had been sent out to look for the spheres when I was gone?”

“I don’t know too much about that. Chiron has been keeping most of the missions a secret, so that the camp won't get too worried about missing demigods, especially if they are in the Sea of Monsters. People have been going missing here for centuries, I mean we just saw Blackbeard for crying out loud,” Joe said.

“This just doesn’t add up at all,” I said. It was like there was a giant piece of a puzzle missing or something and I wasn’t seeing it. Why was this girl working for Blackbeard and where were all the missing campers?

“In any case, we won't find any answers on this island. We should get that circuit back to Hephaestus and maybe get a boat out of here. From there, we can figure out what to do,” Joe suggested, and I had to agree with him. Angel was still sitting in the sand and I offered out my hand to her.

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out and get your friend back,” I told her, and that seemed to cheer her up a little.

“Thanks,” she said and we headed back to the forge.

Note
Any characters in this chapter that resemble any Admins at Camp Half-Blood wiki, either living or dead, are completely coincidental.