AN: Hi! I'm hoping you guys have forgiven me for killing Percy, but, in all honesty, as I said last time, it was a necessary evil. My beta is again off the grid, and I've been busy with exams, so sorry if it doesn't seem like the best writing I've made.

Recommended Book: Death by Don Socrates

Chapter 15

Kennedy POV

I can't believe it. He sacrificed himself for us. No. For me. He's gone. All because of me. He's gone. Oh gods. I might as well have killed him. Oh. My. Gods. No. Grover. The empathy link. "Clarisse?" I started to worry. If Percy's dead, what about Grover? "Yes?" She replied.

"What's going to happen to Grover?"

"Don't worry. Grover's fine. I I'M-ed him just a second ago. He severed the link just in time. Thank the gods for that."

"Well, let's get going." We started to carry the lamb and bronze back to the boat, when Jenny suddenly yelled, "Look! Over there!" I gazed towards the top of the grassy hill that we saw when we arrived at the isle. And I saw something that I could not have imagined. The Helm of Darkness. With only one small problem. There was a monster there. One with nine heads. The Hydra.

"Great. Not only do we have to climb up that mountain, we also have to fight the Hydra while doing it," I said. Another monster quickly came out. "Great, another one of the most stupidly annoying monsters. The Sphinx. Percy said that she didn't even use her old question about man anymore and just asks trivia, and without a child of Athena… Let's hope we get lucky."

We climbed up the hill. "WELLLLLLLLCCCCOOOOOMMMMEEE TTOOOOOOOOOOOO AANNNNNNNNNNNNSSSWEEER TTTHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAT RRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEE!" Answer That Riddle. Percy mentioned this once. Apparently these are just trivia questions and not actually riddles. "You will have 20 riddles to answer, that will be corrected by a scoring machine made by Hephaestus himself, while dodging the acid of my dear friend here the Hydra! Please answer with a Number 2 pencil." Okay… 20 trivia questions. That's easy. The Hydra is the hard part. "Clarisse, you get rid of the Hydra. Jeremy, go with her."

"QUESTION 1: What is the capital of Bulgaria?" Sofia. I scribbled down the answer.

"Question 2: What is the square root of 16?" 4. Easy.

"Question 3: Which US President signed the Emancipation Proclamation?" Abraham Lincoln. Annabeth answered this one.

"Question 4: How many years has it been since the death of Shakespeare?" 401. We just had a celebration last year. Whew. These are getting tough.

"Question 5: How many goals has the Brazilian footballer Pele scored in his career?" 1281. Thank the gods for randomly reading the entirety of the Guinness World Records.

"Question 6: How many percent of the Earth's water is in glaciers?" 2.15%.

"Question 7: Recite the first thousand digits of τ." Uhh… What? Screw it, I'm not doing this stupid quiz.

"Hey, guess what?" With that, I wacked it on the head with its answering machine, then unsheathed my sword.

"ARGHHHH!" It charged towards me, its claws out, ready to kill. I dodged. Ducked. Parried. Thrust. Ran. Parried another blow. Ran again. Thrust. Dodged the claws. Climbed up a tree. It tried to fall the tree. I fell down as it shook the tree. Claws out, it swiped at my blade. I could only watch as my sword broke against its claws. "Shit. JENNY! CHERYL!" I panicked. Using my broken sword, I attempted to use it as a dagger, stabbing it in the arm. It roared, swiping its claws at me. I dodged the hit and ran back, panting, sweat falling on my glasses, obscuring my vision. I threw it away and prayed to the gods for survival. The prophecy only decreed one death, right? The sphinx caught up to me and pounced, pinning me to the ground. I desperately threw the broken sword at its heart, only for it to be blocked by a swipe from one of its claws. Guess I'm going to join Percy…

"INCANTARE: FUGIS UT LUNA!" The sphinx started to float upwards, higher and higher and higher until we couldn't see it any more, then she said, "INCANTARE: AUFERO SARCINA!" Then the sphinx started falling… falling… and after a loud sonic boom, landed as a pile of golden dust. Over in the distance, I saw that Jeremy and Clarisse had also just defeated the Hydra.

"Very well then. Let's just get this helmet and get out of this place," Jeremy said, holding the object of our troubles, "We don't want any mor…" His words were cut short as a giant chasm opened in the floor, making us fall… and fall… and fall…

AN: Whew, that was close! Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, I felt like that was a good point to end the chapter. And by the way, τ, or Tau, is 2π. There's a Numberphile video on it.