CHAPTER THREE:
BURNING OUT

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WHEN ANNAIS AND THE others finally caught up with a fuming Leo, there wasn't much time to avoid the blast. They were several feet behind him, Mel running close enough to almost collide with his back when the world seemed to explode in a pit of fire. Annais' body crashed against the deck, her lungs momentarily forgetting how to inhale air as the air itself seemed to burn and melt. Then, just when her vision began to blacken at the edges, the smoke cleared and the rumble remained.

Those damn grenades, Annais thought to herself, slowly wheezing but breathing nonetheless. Hadn't she told Leo they were a terrible idea? Once again, he didn't listen and now look at what happened.

Oh, she was so going to kill him.

That is, if the dwarf-monkeys, as she'd taken to calling them in her head, didn't get to him first. They were near the ballista when Annais pushed herself up, blinking in confusion at the hawking frame of gorilla-Frank knocked out cold beside her. The dwarf-monkey with the brown fur jumped onto the projectile like it was a skateboard, screeching happily as his red-furred friend shot him high into the sky. With his friend now gone, the second dwarf-monkey danced over to Gleeson, smacking him once on each cheek for good measure, before backflipping over the side of the ship with Leo's precious tool belt slung over one shoulder.

Going out in a blaze of glory was one hell of an understatement.

Annais still had the delirious urge to laugh.

"Piper!" Jason cried, rushing past Annais to where Piper remained tied up at the helm. She seemed relieved that someone had come at last, though she was quick to hurry Jason along with a wide-eyed look to where the dwarf-monkeys had just been standing.

"Don't waste your time on me," she insisted, to which Coach Hedge seemed to agree as he screamed through his own gag. Kill them, Annais managed to make out, to which she just scoffed. "Go after them before it's too late!"

That was when Melanie screamed. Annais felt her insides freeze up in an instant, the fear boiling over as she searched desperately for where she'd seen her sister last. She swore Mel had been beside Hea, helping her to her feet as she groaned and clutched her head. Now, Melanie Min was sprinting up the stairs, panicked tears streaming down her face as she stammered, struggling to get the words out.

"Mel, what's wrong?" Annais frowned, gripping her sister's arms tight. Mel was so fragile, practically skin and bone. Annais feared that one day she'd snap completely, that Annais would never get the old pieces of her back. "Why are you crying?"

"The pin," she blubbered, much to everyone's confusion but Annais' own. "It's gone, they took it."

"Hey, it's okay."

"No, I have to get it back," she weakly protested, resisting Annais' hold when the daughter of Hades refused to release her. "I promised Ezra I'd keep it safe, I promised."

Annais knew that wasn't true. Ezra hadn't known she'd end up in Tartarus, so there was no way she would've told Melanie to watch over the pin she'd held so dear to her. Penelope's pin. The heirloom of a not-so-dead dead girl. When Ezra cut the tether between them, Annais had feared it would be lost forever, falling into the pits of Tartarus with no way of knowing where it landed. But by some miracle, the cursed pin of Penelope Min was laying on Melanie's pin when they sombrely returned to the Argo II. Like Percy's riptide; when lost, it found its way back again. Mel took this as a sign that Ezra wanted her to take care of it. Since that day, she kept it beneath her pillow where she knew it was safe.

But not today.

Today, she went to breakfast for the first time, and the monkey-dwarfs found it.

If it was only Annais, the selfish piece of her would've been content to part with it. Mel, on the other hand, would refuse to rest until she'd torn the hair from those blasted monkey-dwarfs one at a time.

Which left Annais with no choice.

"Shit," she sighed, and let Mel go. "Fine, okay. Just... stay here and watch over Hea for me. Get Piper to check her head if Piper's up for it."

"And you'll bring it back?" Mel sniffled, child-like in the way she trusted Annais not to lie to her.

Annais' heart sank, but she nodded anyway. "Of course. When have I ever let you down, Melly?"

And so, as Leo and Jason prepared to fly down to Bologna, Annais steeled herself for one awkward afternoon. She crossed the deck, ignoring Jason's wide-eyed look as she strapped a spare sword to her side and latched onto his free arm. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she snapped. "We don't have all day!"

By the time they touched down beside what looked to be some kind of official government building -- one made of fine marble carved in a way that Annais was sure would've made Annabeth cry -- Annais had just about had it with Jason. Every touch of his skin against hers was scalding, and now that they were alone (well, ignoring Leo) he wouldn't stop giving her that kicked puppy look. Annais detested it. She despised the way her heart returned to old habits so easily. Where she faltered in the lull of quiet and longed to reach for his hand.

She broke up with him. Not the other way around. He may hate her for hurting him -- or even worse, he may understand it like no one else would -- but he loved her in a way that was faithful and holy, and Annais knew she did not deserve that. She was only looking for excuses, and what better than the woe of guilt and grief?

"Alright," Jason averted his gaze to the bustling streets. None of the locals seemed to notice the giant warship that hovered over their city, or the fact that three kids had just descended from the sky carrying swords. They simply continued with their day, content and foolish.

Leo shrugged. "Well, I dunno. Let me just pull my dwarf-tracking GPS out of my tool belt -- oh. Wait. I don't have a dwarf-tracking GPS, or my bloody tool belt."

"Okay, let's cool it, Valdez," Annais warned as smoke began to drift off his clothes. "Don't make me push you in the fountain."

"Don't make me push you into the fountain," Leo countered with narrowed eyes.

"Why don't we all cool it?" Jason grumbled, arms folded over his chest like a dad scolding his kids. Annais shuddered at the analogy, face tinted pink despite Jason's confused frown. "The ballista fired the first dwarf in that direction, over there. I think. Come on."

Not too pleased to be following an I think, Annais trudged behind the two boys with her head bowed low to the sun. It was an uncomfortably warm day where her shirt easily stuck to her skin with sweat. Dabbing at her brow, she glared when oblivious locals continued to press past her, then some tourists who stopped to gasp at the crisp white columns covered in bright graffiti. Further inland, the streets were lined with clothing stores and gelato shops. Annais carried on despite the overwhelming urge she had to stop and search for some ice cream. It was a hot day, and yet there she was, chasing some stupid pin and tool belt.

Just her luck.

"Hey, Leo, don't panic," Jason nudged Leo as the antsy boy fluttered his hands around. On a typical day, he'd be searching through his seemingly never-ending tool belt; without it, he was like a fish out of water. "We'll find it." Then, with a shy glance over his shoulder at Annais, "And Ezra's pin. No need to worry."

"I'm not worrying," Annais raised a brow.

"Well, just in case you are..."

They rounded a corner, Leo silent and brooding, only to come face-to-face with a looming statue of a butt-naked statue of Neptune/Poseidon. Annais grimaced and averted her eyes. Talk about awkward. If she ever saw Percy again, she'd never be able to look him in the eye knowing that, while it was only a statue, she'd seen his old man's junk and ass crack captured in bronze.

"Ah, jeez," Leo gagged.

"I need to gouge my eyes out," Annais agreed grimly.

"Do you think it's some kind of clue?"

Jason frowned, clearly unsure. "Maybe, maybe not. There are statues of the Gods all over the place in Italy. I'd just feel better if we ran across Jupiter. Or Minerva, even. Anybody but Neptune, really."

Much to Annais' bemusement, Leo drew closer to the statue. He climbed into the fountain it inhabited, placing his hand on the pedestal beside Neptune's crusty bronze feet. Jason followed him, though Annais downright refused to go anywhere near ol' Poseidon's bare ass, quest be damned.

"It's mechanical," Leo muttered in amazement. "Maybe a doorway to the dwarfs' secret lair?"

"Oooh, secret lair?"

"I want a secret lair."

Annais whirled around. Despite not hearing the dwarf-monkey's voices aboard the ship, Annais knew it was them. Their voices were high-pitched, squeaky almost, like a dog's chew toy or a terribly auto-tuned song. They were sitting about thirty-feet away at the nearest café table, the red-furred shithead was even sipping out of an espresso cup he gripped with his foot. Meanwhile, the brown-furred dwarf-monkey was perched with his legs swinging just above Leo's head, sitting on Neptune's big toe.

"If we had a secret lair," Red Fur pondered on one side of them. "I would want a firehouse pole."

"And a waterslide," said Brown Fur, who'd taken Leo's tool belt away from his companion. He was picking through the compartments with vague interest, chucking tools he got bored with this way and that. One nearly smacked Annais on the head, and Leo scrambled to catch it before it could hit the ground.

"Stop that," he snapped and tried to latch onto the dwarf's foot, but he was just too short and missed the pedestal by inches.

"Too short?" Brown Fur echoed Annais' thoughts sympathetically.

"You're calling me short?" Leo scoffed, glaring when the dwarf-monkey nodded and Annais and Jason snickered. "Look, just give me my belt and my girlfriend's pin."

"Pin?" Red Fur smirked and waved a familiar flash of silver at them. "You mean... this old thing?"

"Why, you stupid--"

"Now, now," this time, it was Brown Fur who interrupted Leo. "We haven't even introduced ourselves. I'm Akmon, and my brother over there--"

"Is the handsome one," Red Fur winked at Annais, who scrunched up her nose in thinly veiled disgust. "Passalos! Singer of songs, drinker of coffee, the womaniser--" Another obvious wink at Annais. "--And the stealer of shiny stuff!"

"I think I might vomit," Annais deadpanned, though she went ignored when Akmon rolled his eyes at his brother.

"Oh, please, I steal much better than you."

It was Passalos' turn to scoff. "Stealing naps, maybe!" He waved Penelope's pin at Annais then started picking his teeth with it. Annais merely grimaced, wondering what Ezra would've done if this happened to her. She was almost sure Ezra, in a fit of rage, would've bludgeoned the dwarf-monkeys with it then boiled it in a hot vat just in case they carried any monster diseases.

Annais snorted at just the thought, though her amusement must've come across as sorrow, for Jason, having one of his heroic moments, lunged at Passalos with his golden sword, furiously shouting, "Hey, that's my girlfriend's sister's knife!"

Oh, how Annais loved this idiot.

Passalos easily dodged Jason, springing over his head and landing next to Leo in a back-flip. As Jason stumbled over his feet and whirled around, Passalos tumbled over to Annais and threw his monkey arms around her leg.

"Save me?" he pleaded, to which Annais hurled and tried to kick him away. She grabbed onto the thick red fur of his neck and held him back like a mother dog would hold her pup. Using this as her chance, she reached into his jacket pocket, ignoring his suggestive smirk, and snatched away Penelope's pin. "Really? Come on, baby, think of the children."

"As if I'd ever have children with you."

Wailing in despair, Passalos did another flip and landed beside Leo this time. He and Leo struggled for a moment, with Passalos' arms firmly around his waist. Then, when Leo finally wrestled him away, he came away with Leo's pants zipper, cackling when the son of Hephaestus' pants promptly dropped around his knees. Annais snorted out a laugh, Leo's face burning bright red.

"Give -- the stupid -- zipper!" Leo stuttered, trying to shake his fist and hoist up his pants at the same time.

"Eh, not shiny enough," Passalos boredly tossed it away.

Jason lunged with his sword again. Passalos scoffed, then launched himself straight up until he was sitting on the statue's pedestal next to his brother.

"Tell me I don't have moves," he was quick to boast. Another fruitless wink at Annais.

"Okay," Akmon sighed in mock defeat. "You don't have moves."

"Bah," Passalos scoffed, making grabbing gestures at his brother. "Give me the tool belt. I wanna see."

"No!" Akmon elbowed him away, pouting to himself. "You got the pin and the shiny ball."

"Yes, the shiny ball is nice." Passalos shrugged off his cowboy hat. Like a magician producing a rabbit out of it, he pulled out the Archimedes sphere, waved it at Leo and then began to mess with the ancient bronze dials almost deliberately.

"Stop," Leo cried in horror. "That's a delicate machine!"

When the dwarf-monkeys merely cackled and ignored him, Jason returned to his side and glared up at them. He stubbornly refused to catch Annais' eyes, not that she minded as she stepped up to Leo's other side. "Who are you two, anyway?" he asked.

Akmon huffed at the question. "The Kerkopes! I bet you're a son of Jupiter, eh? I can always tell."

"Just like Black Bottom," Passalos agreed with a solemn nod.

"Black Bottom?"

"Yes, you know," Akmon bared his teeth in a grin. "Hercules. We called him Black Bottom, because he used to go around without clothes. He got so tan that his backside, well..."

"At least he had a sense of humour," his brother said pointedly. "He was going to kill us when we stole from him, but then he let us go because he liked our jokes! Not like you three. Grumpy, grumpy..."

"Hey, I do have a sense of humour," Leo protested, sounding genuinely offended for a moment.

"I don't," Annais deadpanned, arms folded over her chest. "Give Leo his dumb belt or I'll strangle you with it."

"Or," Leo shot her a look. "I can tell you a joke with a good punch line."

Annais rolled her eyes at him. Akmon snorted out a disbelieving laugh. "Nice try, buddy." With that, he started searching through the compartments again, throwing a spanner at Jason's head that the blonde boy narrowly dodged, outraged. "Oh, why this is very nice! I'm definitely keeping this. Thanks, Blue Bottom."

"Blue Bottom?" Leo frowned.

"Uh, Valdez..." Annais coughed. "Don't look down."

Instinctively, Leo looked down. He let out an embarrassed gasp, face so red that Annais had to wonder if he'd burst a blood vessel. His pants were back around his ankles again, revealing the blue undershorts Annais had the misfortune of seeing.

"That is it!" Leo snapped. "My stuff, now, or I'll show you how funny a flaming dwarf is."

Threateningly, he squeezed his hands into fists and smirked as they lit up. Annais grinned, stashing Penelope's pin in her pocket and slipping her ring off. The sword transformed with one spin, and Jason copied her action with his gold coin. Slowly but surely they advanced, with Jason also summoning dark clouds into the blue sky. They rumbled threateningly, and the dwarf-monkeys widened their eyes comically.

"Oh, how scary!"

"Yes," Passalos sighed, catching sight of Annais' eyes on Jason with evident disappointment. "If only we had a secret lair to hide in."

"Alas, this statue isn't the doorway to a secret lair," Akmon shook his head. "It has a different purpose."

Annais and Leo seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time. They shared a horrified look, the fire consuming Leo's hands sputtering out. He instinctively backed away, but Annais didn't have the chance as he yelled 'trap!' and five golden cords spurted out of the statue's fingers. Annais shrieked as her feet left the floor, the trap yanking both her and Jason upside down in a blink.

"Fuck!" Annais cursed as her ring slipped through the cracks of the net and landed on the ground. Passalos snatched it up almost greedily, and Annais snarled as he darted over to the café with it, cackling as he went.

"Bravo!" Akmon applauded from nearby. "You make a wonderful piñata, son of Jupiter and Passalos' wife!"

"Just you wait until we get out of this," Annais snapped and wrestled the net fruitlessly. Jason grimaced when she kneed him in the ribcage but said nothing, too busy trying and failing to summon lightning to break them out. "I'm gonna skin you little fuckers alive, I swear."

"I'll be waiting, my love," Passalos said as he gnawed on her ring with his teeth. If Leo didn't get that back, she'd have his head on a stick. "Hercules hung us upside down once, you know. Oh, how revenge is sweet."

"Leo, fireball him," Annais snarled.

Fortunately, Leo didn't need telling twice. Passalos narrowly avoided the blast as he juggled both her ring and Archimedes' sphere. In the chaos, the ring slipped out of his ringer and into the drain just as the sphere rolled towards Leo's feet. Annais groaned, the last of the fight going out of her just like that. Now she had to swim in the sewer. Great. Just great.

"Okay, time to leave," Akmon declared for them both.

With one last tip of his bowler hat, he jumped from the table and took off down the road. Passalos, who stared woefully at the sphere Leo trapped between his shoes, went pale as Leo sneered and hefted another fireball at him. Doing one last backflip as if to impress Annais, he followed after his brother.

For a moment, disbelief seemed to cloud their judgement. Had this really just happened? Leo scooped up the Archimedes sphere and darted to where Jason was looking obviously uncomfortable cooped up beside Annais, who was elbowing and kicking him in her effort to escape. Quickly, Leo tried and failed to cut the net that trapped them.

"Hold on," he sighed, glancing back and forth from his friends to the direction the dwarf-monkeys had disappeared in. "If I can find a release switch..."

"Just go," Jason huffed. "We'll follow you when we get out of this."

"Wait," Annais' eyes blew wide. He was not suggesting... "Leo, don't you dare."

"Leo, go," Jason insisted when their friend helplessly looked between them. "We can't lose them."

"Yes, we can! Leo, don't—"

Trying his luck, Leo ignored Annais. Shouting a don't forget your ring, Annie! over his shoulder as he went, soon it was just Annais and Jason, and the never-ending silence between them.

Oh, Leo was so dead when she saw him next!

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A/N: song of the chapter (should i make this a regular thing? whenever i listen to a song while writing, that is) - the bottom by gracie abrams / you're not missing me by chelsea cutler aka my wife <3