Chapter 21

Kayla woke to a sickening headache.

She sprung up in bed- seven in the morning- in a fit of cold sweat and a very quick need to get to the railing of the ship.

She had woke the same time a solider had barged in, yelling madness. “All hands on deck! Find Lady Clarisse! Where is that girl?!”

He sprinted off without a second glance when he saw only Kayla.

Kayal wasn’t far behind him- bolting out of bed with a hand on her stomach to make her way on deck. The smell of death plagued her. God, she hoped it was for the soldiers, even though they were already technically dead.

She stumbled as the ship lurched, putting a hand over her mouth. On the first step up to get onto the deck, she paused, a loud, bellowing voice catching her attention. She knew that voice anywhere. Why was Ares on the ship?

“I don’t want excuses, little girl!”

Ew, Kayla thought. That was… demeaning. Another voice made her squeeze her hand on her mouth with a vice like grip. Half from shock, half from trying to not throw up. What?

“Y-yes, father.” Clarisse mumbled. Kayla had never heard the girl sound so submissive in her life.

“You don’t want to see me mad, do you?” Ares growled. Kayla leaned her body sideways to peer behind the stairs- where Clarisse stood in the darkness of the boiler room.

“No, father.” Clarisse replied as she cleared her throat. “You’re pathetic,” He added. “I should’ve let one of my sons take this quest.”

“I’m going to succeed!” She argued, yet her voice trembled. “I’m going to make you proud.”

“You’d better,” he warned. “You asked me for this quest, girl. If you let that slimeball Jackson steal it from you…”

“But the Oracle said–”

“I don’t care what the Oracle said!” Ares bellowed. If it wasn’t for the commotion on the ship, his voice would be heard clear as day all over the Ironclad. “You will succeed. And if you don’t…” Ares raised his first threateningly. Despite being nothing but an Iris message, Kayla saw how Clarisse flinched and stepped back. “Do we understand eachother?”

Kayla gagged just as an alarm bell startled her that started to ring in warning. She squeaked, and quickly took off up the rest of the stairs to avoid confrontation.

Kayla introduced the sea that morning to a nice dose of her own barf. 

“What happened?” Kayla side glanced whoever was speaking to her as she leaned on the railing, gasping for breath. Annabeth, somehow looking so together with her angelic blonde curls, was looking at her worriedly amongst all of the chaos. “Death,” Kayla breathed out. “I sense, death, and it doesn’t feel good–”

Annabeth looked away with a hand to her own mouth, shaking her head. “Okay, um, look, we’re about to start fighting Scylla, we need all of us except the soldiers below deck, now. Unless you want Scylla to-“

“I’m coming,” Kayla grunted, covering her mouth. “I don’t want it to be me. Clarisse is downstairs, by the way. I know everyone is looking for her.”

“How do you know?” Annabeth asked, grasping Kayla’s arm as a strong wave crashed into the Ironclad, sending a wave of water onto the surface.

“I saw her, how else would I know?” She sucked in a breath, wiping her mouth and following Annabeth. “Oh, I really don’t feel good, Annabeth,”

“There’s a bucket downstairs, don’t worry. Come on.”

Downstairs, Clarisse and Percy had already made it to the helm inside. Soldiers had settled down and were in their positions outside, ready to sacrifice themself for Clarisse and the glory they were promised.

“What happened to her?” Percy questioned with a troubled look after seeing Annabeth was here. Clarisse had a stern, cold face, set on watching the show infront of them.

“She said she can sense death… it’s a Thanatos thing.” Annabeth replied, sitting her down with a bucket. “It’s a horrible thing.” Kayla groaned, closing her eyes.

“Where’s Tyson?” Annabeth asked.

“Engine room, don’t worry. We just have to sit, and–” A soldier was plucked from the deck in the blink of an eye, no time for him to even shout in protest. Kayla’s eyes widened, then she threw up again into the bucket. Why did this have to happen? They’re already dead, just cause they’re dying again, doesn’t mean Kayla needed to know about it.

“Two down, four to go.” Clarisse whispered, all her focus on the situation outside. The ship lurched from Charybdis’ whirlpool that they were just out of reach from. They bobbed down in the ocean, then a few minutes later, were bobbed back up repeatedly. The waves that came crashing into the side of the boat from Charybdis did not help in their favour, instead making it hard for the soldiers outside to stay bait for Scylla.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Clarisse pleaded, gripping onto the windowsill infront of her. “Come on, stay on the boat, you big buffoons, stay on the-” Another giant lurch sent two soldiers into the sea, instead becoming sea monster bait. Clarisse cursed. “We have five left, it’s okay. We just need her to pick up four more, so.”

Clarisse’s words were contradicted as one soldier stupidly ran off the ship to get away from Scylla, and another slipped into the ocean. Was the world working against them?

“Fuck!” Clarisse shouted. “O-okay, I don’t know what to-“

Scylla- angered with her dinner being taken into the depths of the ocean- sent a giant tentacles to smack into the Ironclad. Everyone fell into one corner. Kayla comically used all of her knowledge in physics to not have her bucket go all over. That would not be good.

“Keep going forward! Maybe some of the soldiers are swimming around!” Annabeth ordered, lifting herself back up to redirect the boat once more.

“Jackson! Go use your sea powers, try speed us up!”  Kayla yelled, very directly at him.

“Wha- I can try, but I can’t control the wind, it won’t speed up much with the drag of Chary-thingy!” He yelled back in worry, looking around. The ship lurched again. One of Scylla’s tentacles was scouring the front of the ship.

“Good idea, Percy, the Thermos! It can help you.” Annabeth nodded

“Clarisse,” Kayla spoke up, looking less than content in current conditions. “You steer the ship, just.. forward. Annabeth helps Percy outside. Uh, I’ll be right back.”

Clarisse swallowed, nodding. “What- where are you going?”

“To get rid of this bucket.”

Despite the stupid decision of going outside just to throw a bucket of barf away, none of them stopped her. She rushed out with Annabeth and Percy, lobbing the bucket into the ocean that could have been  considered a Rugby-star champion worthy throw. The weather was raging. Percy stood at the end of the ship, while Annabeth had just caught up from grabbing the thermos. Kayla didn’t go in straight away. She looked like a drenched rat, they all did.

Annabeth slipped from the water and dropped the thermos into the engine room, sliding to the edge of the boat.

“Annabeth!” Kayla yelped, rushing over. Thank the lord Scylla’s tentacles didn’t have eyes, or she would be screwed right about now. Luckily, her giant, sky-scraper worthy tentacle was hitting all the wrong areas of the boat, making Kayla think of the meat she would have been if she was stood in the same place as she was five seconds ago.

“Get up,” Kayla held a hand out, hoisting the girl back up onto the ship. “Quick, or I’m gonna pass out, this death thing is not going easy on me.” Kayla rambled. Annabeth didn’t even answer. She crouched down into the trap door of the engine room as soon as she was pulled back up, trying to see the thermos. “Leave your funky wind toy thing! Get back inside!”

Scylla smashed a tentacles down infront of the two of them, sending them screaming as the ship swayed backwards. Percy seemed to be holding up completely fine in his element of water, yet was clearly struggling to make much difference. Her and Annabeth grasped eachothers hands, using eachothers strength to pull themselves up to the helm once again. “Okay, in we go.”

“What the FUCK is happening up there?!” Clarisse yelled, using all her might to keep the ship on track.

“Language! But, uh- Scylla is going to kill us, and I’m trying not to throw up, and I will see you in the underworld, cause we are so dead!” Kayla clasped her hands together, barreling into the wall. As if on que, Scylla picked up the entire ship. A string of curses were let out by everyone. Annabeth was yelling about Percy, Clarisse had been thrown to the floor and was silent, and Kayla was… accepting her fate.

Another flurry of screams were emitted as they began to fall from Scylla’s grip like it was playing with the ship. Just before they hit the water, the ship was thrusted aggressively up into the air. “What is that? It feels like were floating!” Kayla yelled, putting a hand back on her mouth.

“The thermos!” Annabeth answered. “It opened completely when I dropped it, I think it’s- sending us… somewhere.”

“Somewhere?!” Clarisse and Kayla spoke in union. An insane amount of clashes happened- the floating wasn’t pretty. It was fast, upwards, and the ship was being attacked by atleast four of Scylla’s tentacles.

It also all happened in about ten seconds flat.

The funky wind toy stopped its magic- she didn’t know where they were or how high, but with the fact that when the wind stopped working they all ended up flying to the ceiling, she predicted it was pretty high.

…

There wasn’t much of a memory of what happened after that. They obviously must have crashed into the sea- hard enough that the Ironclad was in smithereens. Kayla woke up in a starfish position on her back, floating gently. The ship was all around her, little fires everywhere with nothing salvageable. She guessed that was from the engines overloading. One of the little fires from some random barrel had caught onto her hair when she first gained consciousness, so one side of her hair was shorter and much more hay-like than the other side with singed black ends.

Her wings were away, thankgod for her subconsciously getting rid of them before falling, yet she did have trouble making them sprout back out. She had trouble finding anyone from the wreckage. She shouted everyone, even Tyson.  But it was all dead. Some sort of no man’s land. She could barely even hear the sound of the waves that lapped against eachother. There was a heap of mountains in the North, but that’s all she could see for miles. And God’s… she wasn’t unscathed, either. She couldn’t swim all that way.

Kayla trailed in circles as she kept herself upright in the sea. Her breathing was heavy, her eyesight was terrible…

“Hey, hey, Kayla?”

A cold hand pressed against her shoulder, trying to spin her around. Her head had never turned so fast.

“Hey…hi…”

Before her she regarded the face infront. Cut lip, broken nose, scarred eyebrow and chin, choppy, messy hair. Clarisse. She also sported a deep cut that went vertically down her cheekbone. Clarisse gazed over Kayla’s face.

“Holy Hades, your bloody,” She breathed out, brushing a shaky hand over Kayla’s hair to get it out of her face. “I can’t… find anyone else, I just found Tyson’s backpack, i think, but we need to-“

“Get to the island, I know.” Kayla nodded, putting a hand on Clarisse’s arm. “I can’t swim that far, something is wrong. Let’s- find a bit of scrap to float on.” She coughed.

“W- wrong? What’s wrong?” She tried to focus underneath the water at her body, shaking her head in confusion. Nothing seemed too wrong with her. “Mhmh, I think it’s my ribs, they’re moving.”

Clarisse bit the inside of her cheek, not taking much time to her own thoughts before sliding an arm under Kayla’s arms, grunting. “You just… rest your weight there. We need to find some scrap metal.”

Kayla didn’t have to be told twice. She closed her eyes for the time being to shield away from the light, letting Clarisse swim around to find something they could use as a raft. “Hey, hey, hold onto this for a second,” Clarisse guided her hands to a large part of the burning Ironclad, swimming off to grab something she found. “Life boat, there were two. I thought Percy and the others might have taken the second one but… they’re both still here.” She swallowed, quickly unfolding the mechanism and pulling a tag on it. It started to fill with air.

“Son of Poseidon can’t drown.” Kayla answered sloppily, rubbing her eyes. “No, so… I’m confused. Maybe they didn’t see us and left?”

“Or, maybe he’s still knocked out under water, and Annabeth and Tyson are too, except Annabeth can’t-“

“Stop, I hate her, but I hope not. I don’t want to think about that right now.”

Kayla paused, eyes widening. Clarisse started to swim back over. “No, i would be able to sense it. They’re not dead… and if they are, then not here. No where near here.”

Clarisse gently slipped her arm back around Kayla, nodding. “Okay… that’s good enough. Well done. Um, just, put your hands on the edge, I’ll lift you up.” She hoisted herself into the inflatable life boat, then tried to lift Kayla up as gentle as possible. Which was very difficult to achieve. Kayla was whining and cursing the entire time Clarisse dragged her up.

“Owwwaaaghhh-“

“Shut up, relax. You’re in.” Clarisse took the soggy backpack off her back to place in the life boat. She reached over to grab a metal pole from the Ironclad and used it to push against the sea a few times. The waves could easily take them in, thankgod. She groaned, leaning opposite Kayla’s body on the other side of the boat. “I’ll check the bag in a minute.”

Before anything, Clarisse pulled out a sealed plastic bag of dried ambrosia, stuffing a little more than the required amount into her mouth before leaning over to Kayla. “Open up, Birdie.”

She was in too bad of a state to not comply, sticking her tongue out eagerly to get the medicine.

“There we go,” She mumbled groggily, leaning back to empty the backpack, now. Inside was a bottle of Dr Pepper, thank the lords above. A soggy sandwich, which Clarisse threw into the ocean, some candy that was definitely now sea-salt flavoured, some random scraps that looked to be stolen from the Hephestus cabin, toothpaste and a pair of glasses. “…Where did he think he was going?” Clarisse asked in shocked confusion, groaning. “No bandages. This cut on my leg is gonna bleed me dry, I swear to gods.”

Kayla was glancing down at the sight awkwardly as she stayed laying with her head resting on the side of the boat. “Can I have some Dr Pepper?” She asked helplessly.

“Okay, I know I call you Birdie, but not because I’m gonna feed you everything,” She whined opening the can up. She gulped half if it in one second, leaning over to Kayla, who quickly lifted her hand up. “I’ll do it, my arms are fine. You don’t have to feed me everything.”

Clarisse paused, shrugging and leaning back down with a wince.

“Oh, no.” Kayla gasped. It made Clarisse jolt as if she thought Kayla might be choking and dying on her. “What, what is it, Kayla?”

“My diary,” She mumbled, taking a small sip of the Dr Pepper. “It’s out there, I’ve had it for years, it’s-“

“What, scared of your secrets being spilled to the Sea of Monsters?”

“That book was alot to me. I-“

“It might wash up, the tide is pulling in at the moment. Even if the pages are messed up.”

Kayla sighed, rubbing her face. “Can you pass me that toothpaste?”

“Uh- I… guess.”

Please vote!!
Long chapters since im having way too much fun with this Clarissa content
I know this is only barely half way through the second book, but I have a good idea for the third and it includes most if not all happiness possibly being thrown out of the window😁 and development with Clarisse and Kayla ofcourse. I hope people like my OC so far. She’s a funky comedic little character that is always undermined and underestimated and I cant wait for more character development with her!!
Also there will be more original plot coming into it with Thanatos and things. Just let me cook fr