Thalia kept the hell hound busy giving Annabeth and me a chance to attack. The hell hound was dodging left and right like a puppy with a lot of energy which made it a hard target even with a sword. Thalia was distracting it alright, but it kept moving and was so busy it forgot about me and Annabeth, so, and please don't laugh, it stepped on my with its front paw. I lay on the ground underneath a paw and took my chance to destroy the monster. I couldn't see anything so I slashed every which way with Riptide hoping that one would hit the monster. That wasn't really working out for me, so luckily Annabeth had stabbed it with her dagger. The monster disintegrated into a heap of glowing dust. Some of the customers came running out looking for the three kids that killed the a cute puppy. At least that's what I think they saw. And then they confirmed what I think they saw.
"Hey! Those kids hurt that poor puppy!" I heard one person say from a distance. Another said "What just happened?" and someone else said "They destroyed the store! Call the cops!" And I knew that we had to run.
I pushed myself up off the ground and capped Riptide. I hurried to catch up to Thalia and Annabeth who were a good thirty meters ahead of me.
I caught up and then we saw a dark corner and ducked out of visibility.
"Gee, thanks for waiting for me." I said in the most sarcastic way that I could say it in between breaths.
"Yeah, don't mention it, Piplup." She shot back at me with much more sarcasm once we all caught our breath.
Oh yeah? Two can play at that game. I thought. See the game is sarcasm and name calling. I think.
"No, really, thanks, Christmas Tree" I said. Okay, so I'm not that great with sarcasm, but Christmas Tree was funny, right? Thalia just looked at me like 'what in Hades?'
I explained to her "Well you always give me a new name every five minutes so I will too." She nodded and said "uh-huh." like I was crazy. Then she gave me a friendly face that said 'oh, it's so on' Annabeth just laughed and we walked out of the dark street back to see the bright signs of Manhattan. Or at least I thought we were in Manhattan.
"Um, where are we?" I asked afraid to sound stupid. I knew New York pretty well, but this place was like Narnia to me.
"Hmm. Well, we are, at the…" and Thalia didn't finish her sentence.
"You don't know, do you? Good one, Pikachu." This time I dug into my box of sarcasm and spread it all over that that last sentence.
"Okay, one: I know where we are and two: Pikachu is so unoriginal." Thalia said.
I didn't say anything to that second comment, and Thalia took that as a victory. Thalia just gave a small smile saying 'Ha!' and she lead the way probably further into the Land of Lost.
"Okay, Thalia, really, I think we've been around this block three times. Can we please just call a cab?" I pleaded. I was serious so used her real name instead of a nickname. Okay, fine, I didn't have a nickname ready to throw at her.
"No! Trust me, we're close." Thalia said.
Annabeth and I were still holding hands. I looked to her and she shrugged. I knew what she meant. It was her 'do we really have a choice?' shrug. I sighed and we kept walking…walking into a Hydra. Of course it came after us. Seriously, why are there so many monsters? Didn't the war just end? Who could possible want to kill me now? All of those questions were whizzing around in my head. Once again I uncapped Riptide and charged at the Hydra. I cut and sliced, while Annabeth jabbed and stabbed, and Thalia shot and, well uh, shot some more arrows. Then the monster turned into a flash of glowing dust and fell to the ground creating a neat pile.
"Okay, let's get out of here!" Thalia said hurriedly and ran down the street. She didn't stop running until we found a subway station. Thanks the gods. I thought as I gave a sigh of relief. Thalia took us down the stairs this time un-blindfolded and turned to the left heading to tracks D-F.
"Hey, Air Fairy, it's this way." I said not amused as I pointed to the right.
Thalia turned around and scowled. "It's not my fault that this is so confusing." she muttered under her breath. She sounded really annoyed so I smirked indicating that I did my job to annoy her. I lead the way to tracks A-C. And I smirked all the way there. We hopped into the train leading us to Manhattan. We had a long, long, ride ahead of us. Plus, the train was full, again. There weren't any seats for us to sit beside each other. It was like a packed movie theatre; the only way to see the movie was to split up, so we did. Thalia took the first seat on the left side. Annabeth and I kept walking and I spotted one seat. That was the only seat left so I claimed it by sitting in it. Don't worry, of course I didn't forget about Annabeth. I patted my legs and motioned for her to sit on my lap.
"So what's wrong?" I asked. "You haven't said much today."
"Nothing's wrong." She said putting on a nice fake smile. Well obviously something was wrong and I was temped to say 'okay then' and continue to stare at the ads in the train, but something inside me said that wouldn't be what a good boyfriend does.
"Are you sure?" I asked just incase she wanted to tell me. I stared at her hoping that these green eyes would pull out the truth from her. She sighed and after taking a second to look deep into my eyes with her grey sparkly eyes, she began to say something.
"Just a little sad. I'm going to miss camp, and Quests, and… you" She said, her eyes looking a darker shade than usual, and she mumbled that last part, but I understood what she had said, but just for some fun I said "What was that last part?"
I grinned and she looked at me, her eyes lighting up two shades lighter looking more blue-ish and annoyed and she gave me a punch-buggy punch.
"You. I'm going to miss you." She said not looking at me anymore. But her eyes seemed to shift to a dark shade of grey again. I hated it when she was sad. It made me sad.
"Listen, you're going to be close to camp, and you'll be working on Olympus. I know you've been a year rounder but you'll like this. And think of it this way: school is like a quest. You know, you've got your monsters and bullies. And me; I'll still be in New York at Goode so we'll still see each other. I promise to visit you." I said in my most 'trying to make you feel better' voice. I've never been good at this kind of stuff but I think I did alright considering she just hugged me for a good nine seconds. I caught Thalia's look. Surprisingly it wasn't a glare; it was a 'good job' face.
Of course some monster I couldn't recognize burst out and roared which totally ruined the moment. Things going on in my mind: Ahhh! What? Ahhh! Annabeth is pretty. Ahhh! Huh?
Annabeth jumped and turned around only to see an empousa. She had long sandy hair and eyes that glowed red. I pulled out a pen from my pocket and uncapped it and it grew to three feet long. I really don't know what the mortals saw but I'm sure this probably didn't look good. I slashed with Riptide but the empousa ducked into the crowd of people. I heard gasps and saw everyone's face turn to me looking with fear. Everyone immediately shuffled as far away from me as possible. I looked to Annabeth and Thalia who weren't helping me. Great, let me look like a freak while you just sit by pretending like you don't know me. The doors of the subway opened and I dashed out trying to escape the empousa, and all the security guards that were about to come. Annabeth and Thalia ran behind me and we raced up the stairs with the empousa following behind.
The next chapter will be up soon. And feel free to review! I hope you like it!