Previously:
My fingers grazed something velvety and small. I grasped it and took it out.
A drawstring bag made of blood-red velvet. The strings were silk. Are you joking? The sun was in a convenient bag. In a hole. In the sphere. What, no puzzles? No tasks? How… how…
…Unexpected.
I cautiously opened the bag.
Inside lie a small, baseball-sized, titanium ball. It was very warm to touch, and I could feel a sort of vibration buzzing through it… like something with immense strength was trying to push its way out…
"PERCY?!"
"I… I GOT IT! I think…"
There was a small button on the titanium ball. I wasn't about to push it.
"YOU GOT IT? THE SUN?!"
"YEAH! IT'S IN A METAL BALL! AT LEAST, I HOPE IT'S IN HERE…!"
"Oh it issss, Mr. Jackssson. But you'll never ssssee it." Something behind me hissed.
I turned around carefully.
OH….Fu-
What I was now facing was without a doubt the largest empusa I had ever seen… but not necessarily the ugliest. Her hair was a rich burgundy, pin straight and flowing over her naked shoulders, also conveniently covering her naked chest. She had a slim build, an hourglass figure. Her lips were redder than a rose, her nose perfectly straight until it had a slight upward curve towards the tip. Her lashes were thick and black, winging out at the edges. Her eyes were violet….
AND SHE JUST POPPED THEM OUT. Oh gods. Oh gods. Oh gods. She's holding her eyes… in her hand… in her hands… oh gods on Olympus…
"Hello, Perssseussss. Fanccccy ssseeing you here. We've been expecting you."
"Who's 'we'?"
"The Massssssssster and mysssssself. You may call me Lamia."
"Sssssure… Ahem! I mean, sure."
"Give me the ssssunlight."
I shook my head. "I don't think so. We've just met, and I don't give gifts until at least the fifth date, so, sorry. You're just going to have to find a different life force that is big, bright, and shiny. I KNOW. How about Jupiter? A bit stormy, but manageable. What do you think?"
Lamia did not look amused. She crossed her arms over her chest.
This directed my attention to her lower half. Where the hourglass curves of her hips ended started a tree-trunk thick body of a boa constrictor, given, it wasn't as long as boas get, but I wouldn't think such anatomy is appropriate on women such as her.
"Sssssee ssssomething interessssting?"
"If by 'interesting' you mean 'hideously wrong and makes me want to hurl all over it' then, yes. Interesting."
Lamia's eyes flashed and a forked serpentine tongue flicked between her teeth.
"Keep that to yourself. I don't appreciate such rude gestures."
"Jackssssssson. I warn you. I've given you more than the allotted time to live. Give. Me. The. Sun."
"How generous of you. But no. I don't think I will. ANNABETH! CATCH!" I yelled just as I tossed the bag over my shoulder. I knew Annabeth would get it. I could always depend on her.
"FOOL! IF THAT OPENSSSSS WE ALL DIE!" Lamia suddenly lunged at me, much like a cobra would a rat, caught me around the waist, and we both plunged off the monument to the pavement below.
"PERCY!" I heard Annabeth scream.
"BROTHER!" Tyson shouted.
I had no worries. My Achilles curse would prevent me from dying or even getting hurt for that matter.
Plus, I had found my ticket down.
Lamia and I landed hard, and I felt the pavement crack below us. Lamia was at least 500 lbs, though it didn't look it. Her snake-body was the weight. As soon as we settled, I quickly rolled over so I was on top of Lamia and pressed my elbow into her throat. Her snake body writhed around me trying to find a hold in order to constrict me. But she couldn't breathe.
"I'm coming Percy! Hang on!"
"F-FOOOOLSSSSS!" Lamia tried to scream.
Annabeth drew her dagger and lunged at Lamia. Lamia's eyes widened. Suddenly, without warning, she pushed me off of her with great strength and tackled Annabeth before she could stab. I landed about 30 feet away. Annabeth's dagger was knocked from her hand and Lamia was on top of her. She'd be crushed. She couldn't handle the weight the way I could. I had to get to her.
"ANNABETH! HANG ON!" I drew Riptide. This just got personal.
Lamia's hands were ravaging Annabeth searching for the bag that I knew Annabeth had pocketed. Lamia screeched as Annabeth bravely reached up and popped her eyes out. Lamia's hands instantly left Annabeth as her palms pressed to her empty sockets. I watched Annabeth's arm go back, and then thrust forward and I knew she had tossed Lamia's eyeballs far into the park.
"YOU MANGY HALFBLOOD! LOOK WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!"
"I see what I did… but you didn't." I heard Annabeth mock.
She turned towards me, and on her way over, she kicked up her dagger and caught it swiftly in her hand.
"Are you okay, Annabeth?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Yeah. Did she get the sunlight?"
"You mean this?" Annabeth took out the bag. I grabbed it from her.
It was empty.
"Annabeth…!"
"Don't worry. I gave it to Tyson."
I began to worry.
I looked around for him… but couldn't spot my giant half-brother.
"Where…?"
"I told him to go. Someone needs to bring the sun back to Apollo. He's the only one who can handle it without killing himself or others. It'll bring him right back to the way he was. It's too dangerous for anyone else to release."
"Will Tyson get to Olympus on time?"
"I hope so. Gods, I hope so."
I grabbed Annabeth's waist and brought her to me and kissed her quickly and hard on the lips.
"Let's finish this."
Both of us turned to face Lamia, still writhing and clutching where her eyes had been. She was shrieking unintelligibly, the tip of her tail darting about searching for anything to knock over, tongue flicking in and out searching for our scent.
"I'LL KILL YOU. I don't need my eyesssss to ssssenssse you… GIVE ME THE SSSSSUN!"
She turned and faced in our direction and began to charge, snake body making constant "S"s behind her as it propelled her forward. I stuck out my sword and Annabeth her dagger. With how things were going, Lamia would plunge right into them both.
"YOU WILL MAKE FINE MEALS FOR ME, THE BOTH OF YOU! I'LL SUCK YOU DRY AND USE YOUR SKINS AS ROBES!"
We charged.
My sword pierced through the middle of her chest and came out just next to her spine. Annabeth's dagger sliced her throat.
No sound was made, just gurgles and choking noises as blood erupted from Lamia's mouth and poured from her eye sockets.
She collapsed in front of us, causing more cracks in the pavement. Her snake body writhed for a few more minutes until she was completely still. Then, starting at the tip of her tail, her body began to dustify and then blow away.
"Glad that's over."
"Me too."
Annabeth and I cleaned our weapons and tucked them away. We grabbed our backpacks and exited the park in search of another vehicle.
We had to drive south to Mount Chimborazo.
Why were things always in volcanoes?
We were back in the city streets of Quito. Many cars were parked out in the streets, but none had keys and neither Annabeth nor I knew how to hotwire.
"I'll just read a manual quick. It'll be simple." Annabeth stated as she walked up to a car and tried to open the door. She smacked the window after trying the handle. "Locked." She pouted.
"Beg pardon," I said as I made my way over and punched my fist through the driver's side window.
"PERCY! ARE YOU…?" Annabeth started as she instinctively grabbed my hand to examine it. Of course, nothing was wrong with it.
"You'd think I'd be used to your curse by now."Annabeth mumbled. I just grinned.
I reached through the hole in the window and popped the lock. Annabeth opened the door and dug through the passenger side cubby until she found the car manual.
After five minutes of Annabeth reading and 2 minutes of Annabeth hotwiring, we were on the road again. This car had headlights, and damn if we didn't make good use of them. We had high beams all the way, baby.
4 hours later, we had parked the car and had begun to make our way into the Andes Mountains. It was easy to see which one was Chimborazo. It towered about all the other mountains. I could sense something evil dwelling there. I glanced at Annabeth and saw her shiver. She could sense it, too.
"Three days, Seaweed Brain."
"Let's get going, then. We have a lot of ground to cover, and then a volcano to climb. Best not dillydally."
"Uh-uh."
Annabeth and I grasped hands and we made our way to the volcano. To the lair of whatever beast had caused this entire mess.
To what could inevitably be Annabeth's and my doom.
We'd been so lucky with past quests. We'd been lucky to defeat Kronos. We'd lucked out when Eris tried to take over. Many trials, all a success.
Could we do it again?
I really hoped so.
We stopped to make camp when both Annabeth and I were too tired to even lift our feet to walk. I built a fire with the wood Annabeth had gathered. Luckily, one of the items from the gas station she grabbed was matches, so I didn't have to do the twirly stick on another stick thing to build a fire.
Soon, we had a crackling, orange pile of warmth near a large boulder. I rested my back on the boulder, and Annabeth rested against my chest sitting between my legs. My arms were wrapped around her waist, my chin sitting on her shoulder. Every now and then I would kiss where her neck met her shoulder. Other than the occasional kiss-sound, and the snapping of the fire, it was absolute silence.
No bugs.
No breeze through the trees.
No owls hooting.
Nothing.
It occurred to me that I had adapted to the silence and the deadness of things since the disappearance of the sun. I felt as if we should have won by now. I mean, we had found the Sun, it was on its way back to Apollo as we sat, but something in me still felt like a failure, like we were losing.
We had to get to Rachel and Grover. I hoped to Olympus that Chimborazo was where they were. Thinking back to the visions I'd had through Grover, I knew he was in a stone-like terrain. A dark, dank, and humid, yet chilling-to-the-bone atmosphere.
"Who do you think Lamia was talking about when she mentioned her master?"
I jumped out of my thoughts at Annabeth's sudden question.
"I dunno. We never got any hints. I never saw, through Grover, who the culprit was. Even when I was "fighting" it as Grover, so to speak, I never saw it."
"There has to be something we've missed. There are clues there, I know it. We just have to put things together."
"Alright. Autumnal equinox, the sunlight disappears. Apollo becomes sickly, and near death even though gods can't die."
"Right. Soon after, Rachel, the Oracle, is kidnapped by this monster. Grover is kidnapped with her, because he was in the apartment."
"And then, you came, and we set off on this quest in order to find Rachel and Grover. We stop at a gas station. We're attacked by dracanae and lamiae."
"Throughout our quest, it has steadily been getting colder and colder."
"We discover the riddle from one of my visions. That the sunlight is located in that which is of the same name. In the center. We determine that we needed to go to Ecuador, because Ecuador means "equator."
"We determine that the sunlight is being hidden in Quito specifically because Quito is known as "La luz de America," or "Light of America." And that if someone wanted to hide something, they'd choose the most obvious spot because that would be the last place people would look."
"Right."
"We are kidnapped by Cepheus who tries to appease Cetus by sacrificing me because Cetus was bothering them again and the Oracle wasn't present to tell him what to do, so he acted upon what he thought the monster needed." (At this point, I interrupted Annabeth and we made-out for about 5 minutes before she continued.)
"Anyway… Tyson comes with Rainbow, and we make it to the coast of Ecuador. We travel to Quito only to be attacked by Teras. Then we get to Mitad del Mundo, find the sunlight, and are attacked by Lamia."
"We also find out that whoever caused this, they're in Chimborazo, because Tyson smelled the andesite where the sun was, and it was specifically from Chimborazo."
"I'm going to go out on a limb, here, Seaweed Brain. I've noticed some patterns. Obviously, this is Apollo and Oracle related, as the Sun and Rachel were kidnapped. The majority of the monsters we've faced have been serpentine in nature. We know that Olympus and the Old World moved to Western Civilization, so Chimborazomust be a mountain or volcano from the Old World. The question is, which one?
"I'm trying to sort through all the 'myths' in my mind. There are so many… but I feel like I have it. Right here. It wants to come out…"
"You mentioned something about how Chimborazo was the spot on Earth where the surface is furthest from the Center of the Earth. Does that have anything to do with it?"
"Who would hate Apollo that much to steal his life's purpose and his Oracle?"
"Chimborazo… is furthest from the center of the Earth…"
"What does Chimborazo represent? Let's see… What do the Andes represent?"
"That's what we need to figure out. If we figure that out… we know what we're up against."
"You said that most of the monsters have been serpentine. Who would their master be? Most likely a giant serpent. An enemy of Apollo…"
"PERCY. YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. It is a giant serpent. Percy. I've figured it out. Everything. This isn't going to be easy. Oh, gods."
Annabeth's face was bright with her discovery… but it soon paled when she realized what she had just figured out.
"Percy… we might not make it through this. It's an original. You know how difficult those are to defeat."
"Who is it, Annabeth?"
"It's…"
The fire completely blew out. Darkness engulfed us.
"I knew you'd figure it out eventually…" a voice, sounding like ice cracking, like forks on plates, uttered.
Then everything went black. That seemed to happen a lot lately.
AN
TWO CHAPTERS IN ONE DAY! I'M ON A ROLE!
A bit of a cliffy there. Hope you enjoy. Almost done!
Review if you wish!
Love,
LSC