Hiyah! I'm really excited to start with the more action-packed chapters, so I'm writing and updating as quickly as possible...
Oh, and I anm't Scotch-Irish, to those of you who looked up 'hain't' and 'amn't' on Wikipedia. I amn't even Western European. Or even European, for that matter.
DISCLAIMER: Shirt of Ultimate Disambiguation. Figure it out yourselves. The offer still stands, by the way.
2004 A.D.
Outside Camp Half-Blood
Siofra's POV
I was really happy when I could finally breathe for, like, two seconds, and then I saw the Minotaur.
"Oh gods! He's huge!" I whispered. I touched one of my Stygian Iron bangles (Hades likes me a lot, in case you were wondering where I got the Stygian Iron...), and it formed into a shield. Sally and I started pulling Grover up the hill to the giant pine tree. Percy was up ahead about fifteen feet. I looked behind us. The Minotaur was sniffing the car, trying to find us. When he realized we weren't there, he picked up the Camaro, and threw it down the road. The gas tank exploded, and I laughed. Not a scratch, all right. There wasn't any car left to scratch.
"Percy," I said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way directly sideways. He can't change directions well."
The Minotaur smelled us. We were only a few yards away from the tree, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds, and we'd be monster food. Not a pleasant thought.
We separated. I had Grover, and I started pulling him out of the way, Sally went to my left, and Percy stood his ground, waiting for the Minotaur to attack. It did. Percy jumped out of the way at the last second, and the Minotaur grunted. He turned towards Sally. She started retreating downhill, trying to get the monster away from Siofra and Grover.
"Run!" she yelled. "I can't go any further! Run!"
Percy's POV
I just stood there, frozen in fear as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep him, but he had learned his lesson earlier, and caught her by the neck. He squeezed her throat, and she dissolved into light.
My fear turned into anger. I took off my red jacket.
"Hey!" I screamed, waving it like a matador's cape. "Hey stupid! Ground beef!" The Minotaur charged. I jumped straight up, kicking off of the creature's head, using it as a springboard. I turned in midair, and landed on his neck.
How did I do that?
I didn't have time to figure it out.A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree, and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out. He shook like a rodeo bull, desperately trying to throw me off. I grabbed at his horns, and one broke off. I went flying off of him, my head hitting a rock.
My vision was blurry, but now I had a ragged piece of bone the size of a knife.
The monster charged.
Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side. He roared in agony, and began to disintegrate, not like Sally, but like Mrs. Dodds, crumbling into golden dust.
I passed out.
Siofra's POV
The monster was gone, but now I had two unconscious people, and one was bleeding ichor. Not good, I thought. I rummaged in my bag, looking for the gift from Aphrodite. She would probably have given me something for aesthetics, and there was a chance, albeit slim, that it would cover the bleeding.
Ah-ha! I ripped open the box, and took out the object inside. It was a camera. On a card sitting next to it, there was writing in ancient Greek: 'When you take a picture of someone, their bruises and bleeding disappear.' it said.
Perfect.
"Please, please, please be waterproof!" I prayed to no one in particular.
I took his picture. Sure enough, his bleeding disappeared, and he just looked as though he had fallen asleep.
"Thank you, Aphrodite!" I whispered.
I closed my shield, and started pulling the two boys down the hill.
A/N: You have Howler-of-Hades to thank for the camera idea, just FYI.
- Amariah, wishful adopter of Schrodinger's cat