Chapter Seventeen


Disclaimer: I do not own the PJO or HoO series by Rick Riodan, nor do I own Star Holder Commander's character Walker. I do own all of the other OCs mentioned.


Adrienne's POV

"Come on! What do you want from me?!" Keegan screams, slapping at the monster.

"James! Fire a fucking arrow already!" Tristan shouts.

"I can't! The thing keeps moving around, I could hit Keegan!" He shouts back, throwing his hands up in frustration.

Tristan growls with irritation. We were just standing here like helpless potatoes not doing anything, car alarms starting to go off all around us. I found it strange that no one had come down to see what was going on yet.

I look at Keegan and the monster, then glance around at the other three. We all looked just as helpless as we felt. I clench my hands into fists and take a deep breath. Fighting against my better judgment, I leap forward, James yelling after me.

I hop onto the thing's back, careful not to pierce myself with one of its deadly spikes. It doesn't even notice me, it was too busy trying to decapitate Keegan. I stab one of my stars into its skin, to no avail. It was like trying to cut through titanium with a toothpick.

"You have to—AGH!—find the weak spot!" Keegan says, narrowly missing having an arm sliced off.

I hop off and dart around the thing, while the other three were advancing. Then, I see it. It was on its side, where a human's hip bone would normally be. There was a small patch, void of spikes. Just perfectly smooth, gray skin.

I take out a star, aim, and throw it as hard as I can before it has the chance to move again. And it does nothing. It just bounces off like a tennis ball hitting a wall.

"It didn't work!" I shout at Keegan.

"The spike! You have to stab it with one of its own spikes!"

Tristan quickly lunges toward the thing and slices off one of the spikes. It gives a bone-chilling shriek of pain, reeling back and into a car, completely crumpling it. It had dropped Keegan in the process, leaving him curled up on the ground. Tristan was also on the ground, having had to jump out of the way so he wouldn't be trampled.

Jade grabs up the spike, then yelps in pain and drops it. It was covered in little needle-like spikes. How many spikes did this thing actually need? I mean, I'd seen monsters with lots of spikes before, but this was getting ridiculous.

James grabs it, more carefully than Jade had, and runs toward the creature. It was still dazed from getting one of its spikes chopped off. James drives the thing into the weak spot, yelling as the smaller spikes dug into his hands, drawing blood.

He jumps back as the thing bolts up, getting off the crumpled car. It was slowly making its way back to Keegan. Once Keegan realized this, he scrambled to his feet and started backing away, waiting for it to disintegrate.

It was incredibly loud in the garage now. There were several car alarms going off, and a shriller alarm going off throughout the whole building. It was pretty obvious that security would be here soon.

"Keegan, we have to get out of here," Tristan says.

"Hang on, just a second," he says, staring down the creature.

It was starting to crumble, like cracking rock. A chunk falls off of its head and crashes to the ground, immediately turning to yellow dust. More and more crumbles off, leaving a trail of dust. Eventually, it stops walking and just stares at Keegan with its one remaining red eye. It reaches out in one last attempt to claw him, then falls apart all together.

Keegan stands there in shock, staring down at the large pile of pollen-colored dust at his feet. He kicks at it, sending a large plume of it up into the air. Then he kicks at it again, this time with more anger.

"We really have to go now, someone will be down here any minute to see what's going on," James says.

Keegan nods, seeming to snap out of whatever had had him entranced. He follows us away from all the damaged cars and Tristan takes out the keys to the car.

He presses the unlock button on the remote and we hear a pathetic little 'beep' from behind us.

"Oh please gods, no," Tristan whispers.

He turns around, his eyes squinted shut. He opens them and we see our car crumpled up behind us. It was the one the creature had landed on after its spike had been chopped off.

Tristan moans, covering his eyes with a hand. "My dad is going to kill me,"

We hear shouts from behind us as the building's security grows closer to us. "Come on, we can't waste any more time here," Keegan says, waving us on to follow him.

We walk back through the wreckage and to a side exit in the building. Keegan pushes on the door, but it was jammed. It took him, James, and Tristan to get it open. It gave with a nails-against-the-chalkboard screech.

Keegan takes the lead, diving outside into the dark morning. The rest of us follow closely behind, the door slamming shut behind us. We were on foot from now on.

A/N:

So they're pretty much stranded in Boston for the time being, until they hear from Walker again about where to go next. Who knows what will happen when they leave Boston, what things they might run into...In the meantime, James and Adrienne get to learn more about their long-lost-never-even-heard-of uncle! :D

TWO MORE WEEKS. I have two more weeks until I take the road test for my licence. I am so ready to get this over with so I can finally drive by myself. It will make things so much easier.

And last Wednesday, I left my retainers on the counter, and they got knocked off and Zoe grabbed the one for my top teeth and started gnawing away on it...Long story short, I had to get another fucking mould done on my top teeth this morning at nine. I'm so happy I didn't eat anything before going, otherwise..Well, it wouldn't have been pretty. And for some reason, it's only going to take a day to make it so I get to pick it up tomorrow. I don't understand this at all because it took a fucking week to get my first ones right after I got my braces off. I told my mom that maybe they just like to torture you with the pain of putting them in the first time and that's why they wait a week so your teeth will move out of place a little.

And I also got to stay by myself for pretty much the whole weekend while my parents were in Kentucky. That was fun, kind of. A little lonely, but I had the dogs and Netflix and a friend to text pretty much the whole time, so I was good.

So yea, that was my week...I feel like I've ended a lot of chapters with that lately...

M/A:

"'Well, if I'm old enough to die for your mistakes

Then let's go

Can I bleed enough to fill up what the engine takes?

I don't know

But if you're watching up above

They're teaching me to kill

Who's teaching me to love?

Now baby

Isn't it crazy?'"

Gun. by My Chemical Romance

XOXO,

Mrs-diAngelo25