Chapter 44

Thomas POV

I love Annabeth but right now I was seriously questioning her plan. The cyclops went down easily enough and the eye patch kid got knocked out by Malcolm. The real problem was the Chimera, it healed from everything we through at it and it wasn't even affected by my allusions. I dashed in and cut off half its tail only to have it's attention turned on me while the tail regrew. Now having a very dangerous and poisonous animal looking at me like it wants to eat me caused a very natural response within me and that was to run. Sadly I didn't get very far as after just three steps it pinned me to the floor.

I could feel its weight crushing me and it's breath on my neck then suddenly it was gone I looked up hesitantly to find the Chimera being dragged away by a black chain around its neck.

"Uncle P!" Annabeth Shoughted

Sorry I'm late I took a wrong turn at the Phoenix nest." he said before yanking on the Chain and causing the blade at the end to completely remove the chimera's head. the body State still twitching for a moment before finally disintegrating. "The Chimera may have exceptional healing abilities but Stygian iron isn't feared for nothing."

"How dare you interfere!" Antaeus bellowed.

"How dare you send a bunch of child up against the Chimera." Uncle P replied. "Although I guess I shouldn't expect much from a coward who sits on his throne all day watching other people fight."

"You dare insult me in my fortress!" the Giant roared. I questioned whether or not this place classified as a fortress but decided it didn't really matter. Antaeus grabbed the spear next to his throne and jumped down to the coliseum floor in a single that sent tremors throughout the room. "Now you will die for your offence."

Uncle P glanced up slightly, most likely so he could actually see the giants face, and grinned. "Well then why don't you go through with your sentence. That is, if you think you can take me." the god said smoothly letting two black blades attached to chains slide to the floor.

"Is that a Chain Scythe?" Malcolm yelled.

"Does it matter?" I asked scrambling away.

Immediately Antaeus charged forward only to have a scythe lance across his knee dropping him to the ground. Dirt flow up and over the wound before hardening like a cast and then he rose again. "That weapon of yours may slow the healing process but against me it is worthless." the giant boasted. "My Life is sustained by my mother Gaea, you cannot possibly hope to best me here."

Uncle P just shook his head and laughed "There's a saying that the pride comes before the fall and honestly you take that to a ridiculous degree." Uncle P leaned his head to the right lightly rubbing his neck and wiggling his eyebrows.

"What kind of a fool are you?" Antaeus roared. "You see your death and choose make faces at it?"

"No, I see victory and an arrogant boy about to get strung up by his brother."

Antaeus froze seemingly confused "Brother? I thought you were a child of Kronos."

Uncle P smiled "Who said I was talking about myself?"

A chain, one of many hanging from the ceiling, swung down hooking into the giant's loin cloth. Before Antaeus could react there was a sound of metal being cut and a massive stone fell from the ceiling with a single chain wrapped around it. The giant was hoisted up into the air flailing about like some sort of obscene pinata.

"I believe he was talking about me." Percy said appearing over the giants back. He stabbed Antaeus several times in the back before jumping onto another chain and riding down to a level that was safe to jump down to us from. Antaeus crumbled as sand seem to poor from his body but he was too high up for the Earth to heal him.

"Not bad nephew." Uncle P said glancing around. Annabeth and Malcolm were already heading our way when he told us to head for the exit. Across the entire stadium roars and battle cries sounded as the crowd erupted in chaos

"What's happening?!" I yelled as the others neared.

"Antaeus was the strongest being here by far." Uncle P explained "Without him there's nothing with enough strength and respect here to keep everyone in line."

We charge through the arch way and P blasted it with some sort of dark energy collapsing it behind us and preventing anything from following. "Well that went well." Percy said slowing down a bit.

"Keep moving!" Annabeth said.

"Why we're out?" Percy asked.

"Because if we lose sight of that spider we're going to get lost again." She replied pointing to the bronze spider in the distance, miraculously still in sight. "And Hephaestus won't help us if we don't complete this for him."

"Fine." Percy said picking up his pace. I don't know for sure how long we spent chasing that stupid spider but after what I thought was and hour or two we reached the forge. "Finally" Percy said taking deep breaths. "I'm not built for this marathon stuff."

"You're not even supposed to be here!" Annabeth snapped. "You have any idea what mom is going to do to you when she finds out!"

"Hey! If I hadn't shown up with Uncle P Thomas would be dead right now so don't snap at me!"

"Enough!" Uncle P snapped "Regardless of who is right or wrong Percy is here now so we have to move forward. Now what are we supposed to be doing here?"

"Hephaestus wanted us to see who was using his forge." Annabeth said calming down a little "He couldn't do it because whatever is here can sense him coming and hides. Come to think of it having Uncle P here may have already ruined this for us."

"I doubt it." the lone god said. "I haven't been active for thousands of years and my energy signature is not one that is associated with Olympus. They won't care because technically I'm trespassing just as much as they are. If I try to cause any trouble I stand to lose much more than they do so what would it matter if I saw them."

"I guess that makes sense." Annabeth said. We walked into the forge which was boiling hot, not that it was terribly shocking considering it was a volcano. Immediately the path in front of us stopped in a sheer cliff leading straight to a magma pool. There were two bridges heading off to the left and right, circling the pit before branching off to various platforms and caves.

"Annabeth take Thomas and Malcolm and go left, Percy and I will go right." Uncle P said. No one argued so we separated to find out exactly why so many monsters would risk staying in the forge of their enemy.

AN: Sorry it's been so long since my last update I've been having trouble finding free time for me to write.