Annabeth

When my eyelids flew up, I was greeted with the sight of Mount Olympus. A breeze drifted through the air, rustling my clothes that weren't covered in armor and my hair. I was standing next to Piper and Percy, and the rest of the demigod group was either behind us or at our side.

The sun was just setting over the horizon, and it cast a breathtaking glow upon the home of the gods. The rays of the sun seemed to point towards the majestic temple, illuminating the columns, and making the gems glitter even more. It was beautiful, and I noticed a lot of the demigods in our group admiring the scene set before us.

"Wow," Thalia stated. Everybody nodded or muttered an assent.

"Well, I guess we should get going. Athena said we had to be there by the sun's fall. We're cutting it close," I said.

Again, heads nodded, and we started walking down the pathway towards the home of the gods.

The bridge we were walking on didn't have any supports. It just floated. It was made out of smooth white marble, and all of our boots clanked on it as we walked. The squares of the marble tiles each had intricate designs, and so far I hadn't found one with the same design as another. Whoever had made this put a lot of time, thought, and creativity into it.

Behind us, the bridge ended with a drop off. Again, there were no supports, and no rails or fences. The drop off went down onto clouds, and after that, the clouds blocked our view. It was a least a three mile drop down towards ground. I decided it would be best if I stayed towards the middle of the bridge.

The bridge curved a little, sending us straight towards Mount Olympus. As we walked, we exchanged stories of what happened. We started with Jason and Nico's first.

"So, I summoned a few skeletons to help us," Nico explained. "Kampê did fly, but Jason also flew up and managed to slice one wing and totally cut off the other. Well, not totally, but it was hanging by only a strand of bloody flesh." Lacy shuddered and muttered a quick "ick."

"So after that, Jason kinda had to rest so I took my naturally good sword skills and chopped up the monster, expertly dodging her viper like attacks, and slashing with my super strength, and-"

Jason interrupted Nico, putting a hand on the son of Hades mouth, "Oh shut up. If you're going to tell the story, you might as well tell it right." The son of Zeus continued the story. "I was tired, so I did rest. The skeletons held off Kampê, but she isn't totally dumb. She managed to restrain them by getting one stuck in a tree- don't know how she pulled that off, I wasn't looking- and another two fell in a crevice, unable to get back up. She got rid of the others similarly, then came at me and Nico.

"She was a really good with her swords, surprisingly, and Nico and I could barely hold her off. During the fight, she cut Nico's arm a little bit, and so he had to get ambrosia fast, or else that poison would get to him. So I threw my shield at her and knocked her unconscious-"

Leo stopped him, "How in Hades did you manage to knock her out with just a shield and arm strength?"

Jason gave him a "duh" look and said, "I have power over winds... I can make things that are flying through the air go a lot faster than they normally can go."

Leo "aaaahh"ed and said, "Right. Carry on, Mister."

Jason shook his head, and was about to continue when Percy barged into the conversation, "Wait. We totally forgot about our shields you gave us, Jason. Whoops."

"Oh yeah!" I said, pulling out the bronze cube from my pocket. Jason had explained that Percy and I could make them small again, into the little cube that they came from, so we didn't have to carry them everywhere. And when we did that, we slipped them in our pockets, and we just totally forgot about them.

"Here," I handed him mine, and Percy did the same.

Jason took them, then gave an exasperated sigh, "Thank you. Now can you let me finish? So I fed Nico some ambrosia-"

Leo interjected again. "Wait, you fed him? Like, hand fed?" Leo grinned.

I rolled my eyes, and said, "I'm guessing not, now shut up Leo."

Leo just shrugged, "I was just wondering."

Jason glared at him, "Then don't. So after that, Kampê had already woken up again. So we were back to fighting. Nico managed to lacerate Kampê's leg, so she was limping everywhere. She didn't like that. We figured out then that her bear can roar pretty loudly, and-"

Can you guess who intervened? Leo asked, "Wait, she has a pet bear? What?"

I'm pretty sure everyone face palmed.

Piper helped us out by charmspeaking the fire user, "Leo. Don't talk again until you reach the end of the bridge to Mount Olympus, okay?"

Leo opened his mouth, but nothing came out. A confused look came upon his face, and he closed his mouth.

Piper turned to Jason, "You can continue now."

Jason looked at Piper, "Thank you."

Piper fiddled with her thumbs, "You're welcome."

Jason stared at her for a few more moments, apparently lost, until Thalia rolled her eyes and walked up to punch her brother's arm, "Alright lovebird, finish the story."

Jason stuttered, tearing his gaze away from Piper, "Oh- oh right. The, uh, story. So the limping helped us out a lot, and we kinda just kept darting in and hitting her until she was laying on the ground, unable to move, and then we finished her. It was kinda lame, but it took a lot of time, as you could see. I don't want to get into too many details, though, cause I think everybody is way more interested in Percy and Annabeth's story."

Everybody started agreeing and looked at me and Percy. I glanced at Percy, and asked him a silent question.

He shrugged, "Okay, I'll tell it, but Annabeth will have to fill in the details. So after we split up from Jason and Nico, we got on Blackjack and caught up to the drakon. We needed time to make a plan-"

I corrected him, "Actually, I needed time to make a plan. Percy made me come up with the plan."

Percy dipped his head, "Whatever. So we started going in and dodging the strikes of the drakon, and just started to cut the dragon in little spots, making him angry, until we had a plan. Then Annabeth made a stupid plan-"

"Stupid? It was the only way to kill the drakon!" I said.

"-to make a suicide jump off of the drakon-" Percy continued, but I interrupted him again.

"I knew what I was doing, it wasn't suicide."

"-and attempt to kill the drakon. Then they went into the forest and Annabeth almost got hit by tree branches-"

"But I didn't! I dodge them all, Perce."

"-but then grabbed a branch and hauled herself off of the drakon. Then she made another jump, relying on me and Blackjack to catch her-"

"I knew where you were! I had already calculated where I would land, and even if you didn't know I was there, I still would've landed on Blackjack!"

"-then we went back to the drakon, and I took a well planned jump off of Blackjack onto the drakon's back-"

"Pfft. Whatever."

"-and then I almost fell, cause the drakon flipped over-"

"He scared me half to death! And I couldn't get Blackjack and I close enough to get to him!"

"-but I managed to stay on, and then I climbed back up-"

"After losing his sword and getting kicked by the drakon." I added.

"-and I swung around and killed the drakon. But, then the monster dissolved and I fell towards the ocean. So Annabeth tried to get me, but fell off Blackjack, so I jumped off and managed to catch up. I softened the water, so it wouldn't kill her. Then I went up to see where we should surface-"

"So he left me all alone deep in my mother's archenemy's domain."

"-and when I came back, I didn't find her, so I summoned a few sharks to help me, and we saved her from some mermen who had captured her. The end."

I rolled my eyes, "You forgot to mention that they tried to kill us and I almost died from ascending to the surface so fast. Now, the end."

Everybody was staring with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.

Thalia chuckled a little, "Well, looked like you two had different views."

I shrugged, "I have the right view."

Percy bobbed his head and said matter-of-factly, "And I have the left view." A few people in the group snorted, and some just had a look that said Seriously Percy?

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I glared at him, who was looking at me with an innocent look. Way too innocent.

"You're such a Seaweed Brain."

He smirked.

I remembered something then, and said, "Wait, do you have two swords, cause you had one even when your other one fell into the ocean. And your new one looked exactly like Riptide."

Percy frowned, "No. I only have one. Riptide is a magical sword. No matter how far it is, or gets dropped, or thrown, it always reappears in my pocket. Poseidon thought that I would lose it continuously, too."

I grinned, "Well, I believe that. So you could throw it off this bridge, and it wouldn't get lost, cause it would just reappear in your pocket?"

He nodded, so I held out my hand for the pen/sword. Percy smiled and handed it to me.

"Try and make it lost, Wise Girl," He said.

I glared at him, then turned, and chucked it as far as I could off the bridge. I watched the small glint as it slowly disappeared into the sky.

"Alright, now get your sword and hit me. I'm ready," I said. Percy looked doubtful, because I didn't have my blade drawn, but he didn't know that I had drawn my dagger from it's sheathe hundreds of times. I could do it in a quarter of a second.

Percy swiped out his sword with incredible speed, and I drew my dagger, blocking his side attack just in time. Our blades' collision made a sharp piercing noise in the air.

I smiled, "It does reappear."

Percy smiled, wiggling his eyebrows, then recapped his sword and put it back in his pocket.

I looked back ahead, seeing that Mount Olympus was only about a half a mile away. We kept on walking in silence.

Then Percy bumped my shoulder, and I turned to glare at him and ask him why he did that, but he was shaking his head. Then he bobbed his head in the direction of Jason, who was sneaking long looks at Piper, who was doing the same to him. Whenever their eyes met, they blushed and looked away.

I rolled my eyes, and Percy smirked and raised his eyebrows at Jason. When Jason saw Percy's smirk, he glowered at him, and looked straight again.

I was about to ask Thalia about whether anything interesting had happened when we were fighting the monsters, but a ruckus behind us stopped me.

Everybody pivoted to look at Leo, who was waving his arms wildly and pointing northwest. We all looked to see what he was pointing at, but I didn't see anything.

I said, "What?"

Leo gave a huge irritated sigh, then started running as fast as he could towards the village that was set before Mount Olympus.

When he reached the end of the bridge, and was standing on the outside of the little town, he screamed, "BRONZE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON!"

We all looked at him like he was crazy, then a gasp came from Hazel, "He's right! It's headed straight towards us! I can feel the huge bulk of bronze coming through the air! Hurry! Get to Mount Olympus!"

I wondered why Leo hadn't warned us before, but then I remembered Piper's charmspeak, commanding him not to speak until the end of the bridge. That's why he had run to the end of the bridge to warn us.

Everybody paused, looked at each other, then all at once, we started sprinting towards the home of the gods. Even as we started running, a roar came from the left of us. Everybody abruptly stopped, looking at the giant bronze thing coming towards us. It wasn't as big as the drakon Percy and I had just fought, but it looked heavy, angry, and just as dangerous.

It's eyes looked like two red hot ember coals. Two chutes came out of the bottom of his chin like pipes. Smoke and fire curled out of them. A single bronze horn spiral out of it's forehead, resembling it's teeth, which were sharp and glowed, as if warmed by the fire in the dragon's throat. Great wings with the span of three beds each sprouted from the sides of the dragon. When it roared again, I realized that it's roar sounded like it was vibrating through the long tunnel of the dragons throat. Like if you yelled in a metal room, it would sound like this dragon's roar. Just multiply it by fifty.

I didn't feel the need to look at it any longer, so I turned and kept running. I don't know how we would be able to defeat this thing. For one, it was bronze. How are we gonna kill a metal dragon?

We weren't that far from the village when a large fireball came raging at us, delivered by the dragon. I thought we were done for, but Leo had come back, and he held up a hand, then thrust it forward. From it came a long blast of fire, intercepting the fireball in midair. A huge blast sounded, rocking the bridge.

"Keep running!" Leo yelled, as he blew up another fireball from the dragon to bits.

I stumbled, and almost fell, but Percy caught my arm and hauled me back up again. We kept running as fast as we could, but Leo couldn't hold off for forever. Soon, he was too tired to destroy the fireballs, and could only deflect them. Quite a few of them hit the bridge, chipping off big chunks of marble, but not making the bridge collapse, thank the gods. Though the bridge was weakening by the seconds.

We weren't going to make it. We needed something else.

Then Hazel yelled, "Frank! Fly me up there!"

Frank obeyed, and turned into a smaller dragon, the same indigo one that he was before. Hazel and he flew up to the dragon, and I glanced back to see what they were going to do.

Frank stopped far enough from the dragon so that he couldn't get hit. Hazel raised her arms, then threw them to the side. I guess she could control bronze too, for the bronze dragon yanked to the side that her arms moved in. She brandished her arms up and down, and a clanking sound was hear as the dragon jerked up and then down, then up, then down; again and again.

I laughed at the ridiculous sight, but then stopped when I realized that she would run out of strength too.

I tried to think of a plan.

I remembered something my mom had told me before, "Guys! We need to get to Mount Olympus! There's a barrier there that stops monsters from reaching it! Hurry!"

Running faster, I took the lead. "Follow my steps! The bridge is falling apart!"

I used my architectural eye to find weak spots in the bridge that would collapse and send us hurtling towards earth. I avoided those. Every once in a while, I would glance back to make sure we had everyone.

One time when I looked back, I saw Frank dodging blasts of flames, Hazel barely staying on on Frank's back. Then Frank flew again out of reach of a fireball, and was out of sight. Leo was trying to follow our footsteps, but he was too tired, and each step almost made him fall off.

Then he did. His foot landed on a week spot, and a crack appeared beneath his feet, opening until it was big enough for a person to fit through. He screamed as he fell, and I looked on frantically, wondering what to do to save Leo.

"Jason!" I yelled. He was the only one that would probably be able to do anything, cause he can control the winds. But before Jason could move, a blue streak shot out from under the bridge, intercepting Leo's free fall. Frank flew back up to the bridge, dropped lightly down, then turned into a lion, the two tired demigods still on his back. He sprinted towards us, roaring in defiance towards the dragon.

I shook my head, incredibly grateful for Frank's powers. I turned my head back to the front, and was even more grateful at the sight of Mount Olympus only fifty feet away.

Twenty feet.

Ten feet.

I crossed into the village. I waited at the edge, counting the people as they went, making sure everybody was here. The last person had made it across when I heard and angry roar. I turned, watching as the bronze dragon shot one last fireball at us, three times as large as the others. It whistled it's way towards us at unimaginable speeds, and when it struck the invisible barrier around Mount Olympus, an explosion emitted from it that was a lot like the Fire Bomb explosion, except that all the fire and debris didn't come towards us, cause it was blocked.

It shook the ground we were standing on vehemently, and I staggered, grabbing the side of a railing to steady myself.

When the shaking stopped, I looked up again, and once more counted, hoping nobody had fallen during the blast. Everybody was here.

Percy stood up from where he had tripped during the mini earthquake, and shook his head, no doubt to clear the ringing in his ears.

He muttered, "I am so tired of drakons and dragons on this trip."

Jason grinned at him from his spot, which was sitting on top of a coughing Nico, "Well, no more monsters. We finally made it, and just before the day's end." He was right. I looked to our left and saw the sun's tip just above the clouds, ready to drop and invite the moon to the sky.

I looked around at everybody choking in the dust and clambering to their feet.

I was just about to tell everybody that we should go inside when Thalia said, "Well, we pretty much destroyed that bridge."

Closing my mouth, I turned to look. She was right. The dust had cleared, and I could see the remains of the bridge. The once beautiful piece of art was now in smoking chars. Craters were randomly placed around, looking like welts on smooth skin. Little fires were still up and burning, but they would soon go out. We had kinda destroyed the pathway.

"Oops. Well, we survived," I said.

Then I heard an angry woman's voice, full of wisdom and authority, "What have you done? You've destroyed it!"

I winced at the familiar voice, and slowly turned to see a ten foot tall irritated goddess.

I smiled weakly, waving a little and said, "Hey mom. Good to see you."