Chapter Five

Kronos Has Some Reserves

Dan was this crazy little guy who is apparently hunting for something called "The Clues". He didn't tell me what they were, but I thought this guy was definitely not normal. He might be mortal, but I have a feeling that he is totally ADHD, even by demigod standards.

Dan reminded me of when I met Nico di Angelo. OK, maybe Dan didn't radiate death, but he was pretty annoying. Years ago, Nico was obsessed with this game called Mythomagic. He used to ask me if I had 5000 attack power because I'm a son of Poseidon, but now, Nico seemed to have outgrown it.

Dan was also asking me some stupid questions like, was I a crazy nut who wants to blow up the world (I tried to not hate him for saying that), was Annabeth my girlfriend (fine, maybe it was true, but I didn't want to go on and tell a whole story about that, so I wanted to magically shut him up).

Finally, his sister told him that they better get going, so the left us alone in the tunnel.

"Well, now what?"

"Die?"

"That's not the answer, Will!"

"Fine, what ideas do you have, Wise Girl?"

Somehow, it was OK when I called her that, but when Will says it, it didn't sound very cool.

"Camp for the night? We need a little rest."

"We've been down here for only two hours, and you want to camp?"

"Come on, I'm getting tired."

"Shut up, Seaweed Brain, and let's go."

So I reluctantly started walking deeper into the tunnels. Once in a while, we would see some repair workers working on the subway, and Nico put them into a death trance.

After walking for another half hour, we started hearing rally cries from somewhere close. They were really creepy, especially "Let's kill Jackson, who killed Lord Kronos". I totally believed that they were about to kill ME. I took a big risk, and drew the Sig Sauer P226, then fired a blank to lure the enemy out.

I heard another round of chattering, and then, a door next to us flew open, and an army of demigods poured out, holding a red flag with two crossed scythes on it. I didn't see that banner in the Titan war, but it wasn't very hard to figure out. They were Kronos' forces.

We went ballistic, and I regretted losing the curse of Achilles. If I still had the curse, then I would have been totally invincible, and could kill every single enemy without getting myself killed, however, that wasn't the case.

The enemy surged forward, and I told everyone else to retreat while I held them back. Nobody refused-except Annabeth.

"Go! Retreat to safety, I'll be back!"

"No! I'm not going to let you die alone!"

"But then you'll die too!"

She was all glaring daggers at me, like she was going to stab me any second. But she didn't stab me, instead, she kissed me.

"Good luck, Seaweed Brain," and then she put on her invisibly cap and disappeared.

I figured that I was just going to kill as many of Kronos' demigods as I can kill. But then, something more horrible appeared.

He had the head of a bull, but his body was humanoid. His legs were snakes, and he had a tail that looked like 50 million tires all strung together.

One shall be lost at the bull man's feet. That was what the prophecy said, and now, I understood what it meant. The one was none other than me.