Hi, Innoverse here with chapter three! Yay!

I'm glad I re-posted this, because it seems to be getting more attention with the new summary/title. I'll admit, the old summary sucked. The title, too, maybe. But I'm glad people are reading this one. :) I appreciated the reviews, too!

And now, we conclude the fight with our first monsters. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own PJATO.


- CHAPTER III: CREEPY GREEN LIGHT -


I was running. Again.

This was really starting to feel familiar.

The dark alleys were a blur as I tore through them, throwing down trash cans, boxes, or whatever else I could get my hands on behind me. Even so, I could still hear the clang of metal as the golden women clomped on behind me, and a golden arrow whizzed past my head every once in a while. I could hear their footsteps getting a little closer. But I kept running, still holding onto my little brother, my brain screaming; What now?!

I'm still working on that...

"Nothing like a good chase to make you hungry!" a Keledone shouted from behind me. There was a bunch of ugly laughing following behind, and I briefly wondered how Apollo would ever want these women in his temple. Or why Hephaestus would ever make a metal woman who likes to drink blood. Did the gods want to kill their children?

An arrow whizzed past my foot, snagging a shoelace and causing me to stumble a little bit. I slurred a curse before remembering that I was carrying my five year-old brother, but quickly amended it with a 'Don't you ever say that' and tried to pick up the pace some. Unfortunately, these ladies had probably gotten their eight hours a night, and they didn't have any trouble keeping up with me. I had a feeling that they were messing with me, like how a cat plays with a mouse before it kills it. The thought wasn't exactly reassuring.

I turned a sharp corner—nearly spraining my ankle in the process—and I thought I could see a light up ahead. I squinted as I dodged a fallen trash can, and saw that, in fact, there was a sort of greenish-colored light coming from one of the side alleys up ahead. I know, I know, You're already running from a monster! Why run towards the creepy green light? But I was desperate. There was no way I could take these things out myself. If there was light, there were probably mortals nearby. Even with the Mist, they could probably manage to get in the Keledones way, and I could disappear. It felt cowardly, just running away like that, but I didn't have a choice. My brother's safety was worth more than my pride.

I approached the green light, and darted around the corner. What I saw was a little stranger than mortals with paper lanterns.

There were three teenagers about my age, sitting in the alley. They looked stooped, tired and dirty—like me—with backpacks and various band-aids and butterfly bandages. There were two boys and a girl, both boys with sword scabbards hanging from their hips, and the girl had a wooden bow stretched across her knees and a quiver of bronze arrows sitting next to her.

Demigods. Boy, that was kind of a relief.

But there was also something strange—the source of the green light. They were all sitting in a circle that had been drawn on the dirty asphalt. But it wasn't just a regular old drawn chalk circle. It was made out of five strange, green-glowing symbols that were connected by lines that were also glowing green. It kind of reminded me of the pentagrams witches used to summon spirits—except the fact that it was a circle instead of a star and there were no candles.

I must've had a pretty strange look on my face. "The heck?"

They all looked just as surprised as I did, but then again you didn't see random teenagers carrying a wrench in one hand and a toddler in the other all too often either, even if this was New York.

"There you are, little demigod!" one of the Keledones snarled from behind me. I whipped around, instinctively swinging the wrench and hitting another one in the face. A gash opened up on her forehead and started leaking golden blood. Ichor. The blood of monsters and immortals.

"You'll pay for that!" she yelped. I set Kenny down—who wisely ran to hide inside of an empty trash can—and hit her over the head again. The other three kids stood up hastily, drawing their swords and readying arrows. It felt kind of nice to have back-up—even if I didn't know any of the three teenagers—since I'd been fending off monsters for years on my own. Even though Kenny was really young, two half-bloods attracted quite a few baddies.

The most heavily armed one holding the spear and shield rushed at me, apparently seeing me as the biggest threat even though there were three kids with proper weapons behind me (Monsters are always such idiots). The other two ran at the boys with swords, while the girl swung herself up on a pile of boxes and started firing arrows at the Keledones.

I threw myself at the golden woman, swinging the wrench along with my body weight, hoping to crush her under her own shield. She collided with a wall, and her arm crumpled a little, but since she was made of metal, it didn't seem to faze her. She thrust her shield at and tossed me backwards, but I dug my heels into the ground and managed not to crack my head on a wall. I'd skidded right through the little circle thing, and the images didn't even smudge. Strange...

She charged at me and ran through the circle, but as she entered the boundary, she slowed a little and struggled, but eventually broke through and tried to skewer me with her spear. I jumped out of the way, and followed up by swinging my wrench into the back of her head. The girl watched her run through the circle and cursed.

"Your protection spell didn't work!" she shouted at one of the boys, who was fighting off the one with the metal bow. The Keledone had started swinging it like a club, and it looked like it was leaving some nasty bruises.

"Of course not!" he shouted back, ducking another swing.

I didn't have the time or the energy to try asking them what on Earth that meant, so instead I just focused back on the golden lady wielding a spear. Every time I swung my wrench, she just raised her shield to block it, and then tried to stab me again. I was already exhausted from lack of sleep and running—not to mention that I was probably still loosing blood from the bullet wound—so the odds weren't good for me if she still had both weapons.

She thrust her spear at me again, and this time when I dodged, my hand shot out and caught the shaft of it. We wrestled for the spear, while I beat on her wrist with the wrench trying to get her to release it, or at least break her hand beyond repair. She slammed her shield into my side, and my left arm went numb, but the momentum worked in my favor. I managed to rip the spear out of her hand—but the force of the pull bent it to an odd angle. She also lost her footing, and managed to fall over...

...right on top of me.

We hit the ground hard, her shield slamming into my gut with enough force to knock the air out of my lungs. The bent spear flew out of my hand and skittered across the ground. I recovered from my shock and managed to find the strength to heave her off of me and roll on top of her. I raised the wrench and hammered it down into her forehead while she tried to throw me off with her shield. I repeatedly hit her with the wrench until the gold plating cracked and I could see the gears and levers inside her head, but she kept right on going.

I was tired and worn out, and I couldn't keep this up for much longer. Finally, she managed a good shove, and threw me off her dented body. Somewhere in the background, I heard a short scream from one of the woman, and then the whooshing noise that only came when you killed a monster. The woman I was fighting scooped the bent spear up off the ground, and planted her foot hard in the center on my chest. She was twitching a little, and the wires in her head were sparking. But I was pretty sure that she still knew she wanted to kill me.

I heard a consecutive thwack, thwack, thwack as the girl fired three arrows into the other Keledone, and the whoosh of it exploding into dust. I banged uselessly on the side of the last Keledone's leg with my wrench, struggling to breathe, but only making dents that didn't seem to bother her.

She held the spear over my forehead. "You were a tough breakfast, demigod," she said, but her voice was metallic, and she kept stuttering and sparking. "But I like a challenge."

Her body tensed to thrust the spear, and I suddenly found myself wondering if these teenagers would keep Kenny safe if she killed me. But she never got the chance. Just as she was about to impale me in the head, the tip of a sword burst through her chest. Her hands twitched, and she dropped the spear right before she burst into dust.

Standing over me was one of the boys—the one the girl had been yelling to about protection spells or something. I finally was able to get a good look at him. He had thick, unkempt brown hair, a few freckles across his nose, and bright blue eyes. He also had a small, thin, white scar just above his left eyebrow. He was about my height, with some suggestion of muscle tone—probably from wielding a sword and running from monsters. Most demigods tended to look like that.

He offered me a hand. I took it gratefully, and pushed myself up off the ground with my other elbow as he helped me stand. Even if the left side of my body was a little numb, I was still panting like a dog, and I was blinking spots out of my eyes, I managed to look him in the eye and say, "Thanks."

He blushed a little. "Uh... no problem."

Kenny popped out of the trashcan, and hurried over to me, wrapping his arms around my hips and leaning his head against my waist. I unconsciously ran my fingers through his hair.

The boy standing a little ways behind the blue-eyed one was a ginger—he had a curly mess of red hair the color of wet clay, a lot of freckles, and dark brown eyes. He was kind of tall and gangly, with pale skin and a lot of smile lines. The girl next to him was a little shorter than him, with wavy auburn hair, no freckles, and light gray eyes like fluffy cumulus clouds. In other words, the three of them couldn't have looked any different.

"Well," piped up the ginger boy, as he sheathed his sword and wiped some sweat off his brow. "It's a pleasure to meet you."


Ah ha ha! Because I'm so evil, you'll have to learn their names in the next chapter. They might or might not be the trio mentioned in the summary... you never know, right?

Wow, fight scenes take forever to write. I was sure that was going to be longer to read...

Thank's for reading! Since you've made it this far, why don't you tell me how I'm doing? If I don't get feedback, I can't improve the story. But I do appreciated each and every little review. :)