POTTER FILES : THE LIGHTNING THIEF

Chapter 2 : The First Test

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Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter or Percy Jackson.

Note : The timeline of the HP universe has been changed to fit PJO universe. Some slight changes have been made to HP canon to fit girl Harry. So, Iris (fem!Harry) Potter was born on 31 July 1993 and COS happened in 2005-2006.

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Iris Potter came out of the check in with a smile on her face. Being a magical has its perks. There was a separate section reserved for magicals. While the paperwork and security checks were as stringent, she did not have to wait in a queue as only a rare few magicals travelled by aeroplane, especially from Europe. She looked around at the various people standing there and finally found a sign with her name and place on it. The boy holding it had curly brown hair peaking out of his rasta cap, brown eyes, Caucasian skin, wispy beard and was wearing a green shirt which had the message 'Save the Wild' on it along with the picture of some trees and khaki pants. It seemed that she had finally met someone with the same level of appreciation for nature as her. She had just stepped foot on American soil and life was already off to a good start.

"Are you Iris Potter?"

"Yes, are you Samuel Van Grove?"

"Erm, Well, no. I am Grover Underwood. Sam was supposed to escort you but something came up. I was supposed to escort Percy, my charge, but I lost track of him. I called his home but his stepfather mentioned about them going to Montauk. I contacted the camp and they said that if I was going that far, I might as well take a detour and bring you with me as well."

She gave him the look assessing him. She had always been able to read the body language of others. It was essential to survive the Dursleys. She saw his nervousness, his shame but no deception. He had his head down as if he was waiting for her to reject him and ask for a better escort.

"If we have to go to Montauk to catch a runaway demigod, then we have no time to waste. Come on. Let's go.", she said.

They quickly got into taxi the Grover had arrived in and took off.

"So, you don't mind me escorting you?", he asked.

"Put it this way. I know that my escort will not be treating me like a helpless child unable to do anything on her own.", she replied.

It was true. While she did not want to say that Grover making a blunder was a good thing, there was something about hunting the demigod that had gotten her blood pumping in excitement. It was like the mysteries of the last two years. Hermione was the one who unearths knowledge from obscure records in previously unknown area of the library. When it comes to knowledge, the girl was like a hound with a scent. Nothing escaped her. Iris was more comfortable with the practical application of knowledge. She preffered action over words. Her below par academic performance was due to her disinterest in learning things that has no use for her in the real world rather than any lack of intelligence. Neville, as the only one amongst them to grow up in the wizarding world, was the one they depended on to get the wizard's point of view, both the magical bit and the boy bit. He was also the one who grounded them whenever they went off into their own world forgetting the real one. Iris wished that they were demigods so that they could accompany her on this trip but she knew that not everything would go her way. She would just have to savour the taste of victory alone when she catches up to the errant demigod.

"Grover, did you say something to me?", she asked him.

"I just asked you if you were alright.", he replied bleating nervously, "You have been scratching your hand for no reason for some time."

She looked down at her hands and realized that she had been scratching over her middle finger for quite sometime. Once she stopped scratching, she noticed a weird mark on her finger, like an imprint left just after removing a ring she had been wearing for a long time. It was weird as she was sure she had never worn a ring in her entire life. The markings gradually started darkening on her skin until she found herself wearing a ring. It was not one of the modern rings with thin circular band and a chunk of semi-precious stone stuck on top of it. It was more like an ancient Incan artifact. It was not difficult to guess who her benefactor was as it was made by the skin of the monster she had killed. She instinctively flicked her wrist and saw that she now had a knife in her hand. It looked like a knife, it was bigger than a dagger but smaller than a katana. She realized that she needed to learn more about weapons. She didn't realize that she had been admiring it for some time until she was interrupted.

"It seems your parent has already given you a gift though I have not seen that type of a weapon before.", Grover spoke.

She quickly flicked her wrist the other way and returned it to the ring form. She had a feeling that her weapon was the kind that the less people knew the better.

She then asked about Percy as she could see that he was nervous enough to chew his shirt. He started telling her about their first meeting, how he tried to protect him from bullies, his survival of an attack by Kindly One, their failed attempts to keep him ignorant of the world of Gods, their travel by bus being interrupted by Fates and eventually losing track of him. After hearing the whole story, she began to feel that he was not as bad as she had initially assumed. A boy, sheltered from the darker aspects of the real world, would naturally run away if his friend speaks of his imminent death and runs away leaving him alone. Not all is lost. Grover had created some kind of empathy link with him. So, he would know it the moment Percy dies. Well, she would considering that Grover would either die or end up as a vegetable at that moment. Say what you would about the goat boy, there is no doubting his bravery or stubbornness. Then he was an environmentalist too. That was always a plus point in her book.

It was then that she felt it. The hair on the back of her neck stood up, she felt goosebumps all over her skin, what she called danger sense was warning her that something was coming for her and that something did not have good intentions in mind.

"Grover, did you feel that?", she asked him.

He was confused at first but the confusion soon turned to fear and she knew that he smelled something. He looked through the window at the back and saw something that scared him enough to shout at the driver to go faster. The driver was about to shout back but then he saw something on the rear view mirror that terrified him enough into stamping on the accelerator. She wondered what he saw through the Mist that was dense here due to the godly presence. She could not see anything through the rain initially but when lightning flashed across the sky, she saw it, the head of a serpent huge enough to swallow whole the cab she was sitting in. The driver was trying to drive as fast as he could but she knew that it would be of no use. After her experience in the Chamber of Secrets, she knew that monster snakes could move very fast despite its size, especially since this one did not have to deal with the limitations of closed space like the previous one did.

Even if she expected the strike, it came almost too fast for her to dodge. The sheer power behind the strike caused the cab to overturn and fall to the side. The speed of the vehicle ensured that it went some distance before it stopped. It gave them some precious few minutes to get over their disorientation and assess the situation. The good thing about the situation was that the torn side of the car was facing upwards and so getting out was not difficult. The bad thing about the situation was that the snake would have already surrounded the car and be ready to swallow them the moment they get out. Another equally bad thing about the situation was that if they do not get out quickly enough, the snake might get impatient and just decide to crush the vehicle with them in it.

They got out quickly but the expected strike did not come. The snake seemed content to watch them, well her, at least for the moment flicking her tongue once in a while. It was when her eyes connected with its that she had realised her folly.

~You are not Leto...yet you are of her blood...You will be a tasty snack that would satisfy me till I find the meal I was promised.~

The casual way it dismissed her as a possible threat and branded her as a temporary sustenance terrified her. She had a feeling that the monster facing her had crushed many foes greater than an untrained scrawny little girl with ease.

The snake suddenly lunged at her fangs bared but she could not move. Her body refused to obey her commands and she was left staring at her killer in terror. Unlike the stories, the snake did not seem generous enough to give her time to flash through her entire life, as short as it was, note down all her mistakes and decide how to prevent them if she happened to go back in time with all her memories intact after her death like protagonists sometimes do in stories. Just as its mouth was about to engulf her, she was pulled away from it. It left her and her saviour fall on the road while the snake has head stuck in the opening. She then decided that if she survived the snake, she would do this flash thing at regular intervals during her free time rather than leaving it to the moment of her death.

Grover bleated and muttered, "Why do I always get the unlucky ones? First a Kindly One, now the mighty Python himself."

"Grover", she asked nervously, " When you said the Python, did you mean the one Apollo killed many millenia before?"

"You can say that.", he replied eying the snake warily.

She tried to remember everything she knew about it. She knew that Python was the guardian of the Oracle of Delphi who was sent by an enraged Hera to kill Leto before she gave birth to her children. It failed and once the children grew up, Apollo hunted it down and killed it claiming the Oracle in the process. It was said to be a hard-fought battle in which he defeated by shooting an arrow into its mouth or a hundred arrows, she was not sure about that part. She did not have a bow and arrow with her right now nor were there anyone nearby who is ready to lent her one. Even if she managed to get one, there was no guarantee that she would be any good at it. She was not going to try the suicidal move on the Python when her weapon had lesser reach than the Gryffindor's Sword and consequently lesser chances of success. She did not even consider using magic as it was mostly immune to it, at least to the spells she was proficient in.

The snake finally managed to pull its head out of the wreckage. It then suddenly lunged at her causing them to jump to different sides to avoid its jaws. The moment the head passed by her, she pulled out her knife and thrust it far enough to grace its skin using its own momentum to wound it. It was a good thing she was not close to it as the greenish blood that spilled out was acidic enough to make holes in the road. It was surprising for her to see the knife slice through its skin like butter but it was more surprising for Python who was used to being invulnerable all its existence. The snake was looking at the wound as if it had just seen her slob of an uncle dancing in pink tutu. She shuddered. She did not hate it enough to want it to experience such horrors. It was good to see that its invulnerability was limited to celestial bronze. Now that she knew it was not indestructible, the advantage was on their side. Due to its huge size, there were a lot of places she could injure it but due to their smaller size, the Python would have more difficulty, something which would only increase with the number of injuries inflicted on it.

Python then looked at her tilting its humongous head as if she was a puzzle it had just solved. She did not have to hear it hiss to understand the message. The play time was over.

It lunged at her slower than before which was not necessarily a good thing. While it gave her time to make her move, the snake also had enough time to adjust its direction according to her movement. It was then she heard it. It was the most horrible sound she had ever heard in her life. It sounded like owls being tortured. She clapped her hands to her ears to protect it from damage. She noted that while the noise was painful for her it was torture for the Python. It was painful enough for it to wiggle around in throes of agony. She searched for the source of the sound and found Grover playing a flute. It seemed that Grover had found another weakness of Python and was using it judiciously. She had heard of snake charmers in India who were capable of making a snake dance to their tunes. She had just assumed that they were secret Parselmouths who discussed everything with the snakes beforehand and then performed to the script. She now had greater appreciation and respect for the Indian culture and traditions. She might even give the pain inducing curries and stomach filling biriyanis a try.

The noise suddenly stopped. She recovered faster than the snake and took advantage of it by climbing onto it. Grover kept distracting it by playing that horrible tune and she kept using the knife as a hand hold whenever it looked it was going to lunge at Grover. By the time she reached the head, the snake was already worn out due to the injuries and the venom. It was a testament to its resilience that it had fought for so long. She then stabbed the knife into both its eyes blinding it.

~For Titaness Leto~

She hissed just to spite it further and plunged her knife into its head with a war cry. The mighty Python crumbled into golden particles and was washed away in the rain. She then noticed a ring on the ground similar to the one she had. The moment she touched it, it turned into a knife with a muddy brown handle and what she believed go be Python's teeth. She returned her knives to the ring form and went to check on Grover.

Grover was tired but alright with no serious injuries to worry about.

"Goatboy, when were you going to tell me that your middle name was Heracles?", she asked him.

Grover shuffled his feet-hooves in embarrassment and said, "I didn't mean for it to happen. I was trying to get the branches of the trees to grow and bind the snake."

"Magic works in mysterious ways, my friend. It is not uncommon for it to act on your need rather than your want. Especially magicks involving forces of nature like Bard magic or whatever you call it here. If they like you, you get something extra. If they don't like you, well ..."

Yes. She had declared him as her new best friend. If he had not already earned it by saving her, he definitely earned it by causing the Python so much pain.

"How do you know so much about woodland magic?", he asked her.

She gave him a wise sage smile she had seen Dumbledore give many times, well at least she tried.

"You saved me twice today. Thank you.", she replied.

She was embarrassed that she had to be saved but she was grateful he did not let her become a 'tasty snack'.

"It is nothing. I was just doing my job as your Protector.", he replied embarrassed by her praise, "You did keep it away from me though."

"Alright, compromise. We helped each other and killed the Python together."

She wondered whether a certain god of Music had helped them. It did seem weird that when Grover made a mistake, the result ended up being the very tune that drove the Python into throes of madness. After all, who would know the weakness of Python better than its previous slayer? She was not going to mention the possibility to Grover of course. He was a lot like her friend Neville, he needed self-confidence injected into him at regular intervals. She would just quietly sacrifice something for Apollo after she reaches the camp.

"Do you know what happened to our driver?", she asked him making him look back at her in shock.

They had forgotten the driver. They checked the car and found him, well, if the Underworld had any vacancy for cab drivers, one of them was filled. She really hoped that he had no family that was dependant on his income. It would make her feel worse. There was something she could do though.

"Grover, do you have a drachma, is it?"

He gave her though from his face she knew he did not understand the reason.

"O Charon, Ferryman of Hades, accept this offering and let this recently deceased man face his judgement", she said and placed the coin on his mouth.

The coin disappeared in golden light and a second later the man glowed for a few seconds showing that he was moved on to receive his judgement.

"That was nice of you."

"He might not have known of our world but he tried to get us to safety at the cost of his life. It is the least we could do. Now, I am going to gather necessary supplies. Why don't you work some satyr tracking magic so that we will know where to go next?", she replied.

She searched the car thoroughly and took everything that would be useful to them. She heard the sound of hooves and knew that Grover had returned, in a hurry.

"There is a problem. A monster is heading this way. I think its headed for Percy. We have to get there quickly.", he said.

She should have panicked or at least felt some fear but she was feeling oddly calm and confident. She had been acting weirdly ever since she broke through her bindings. She was calm and cool when she should be fearful or furious while she sometimes loses her temper for small issues.

"How do you know that it is after him and not us.", she asked while keeping pace with him.

"It is the same monster Theseus killed in the Labyrinth. It is headed in his direction."

"A fast moving monster that relies on its physical strength. Interesting. How far is Percy?"

"We can get there on foot. If we are fast enough, we can get there before it does."

A race. Things just got a bit more interesting.

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Percy's POV

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.

The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!

I woke up with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke up. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never saw hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on the end. Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night", he gasped, "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain, "What happened at school? What is it that you didn't tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

"Grover, it is rude to barge into someone else's home and make demands of them without even introducing ourselves", said a female voice in a reprimanding tone.

I was startled out of my shock and noticed for the first time a girl standing next to Grover. I guess I should describe her. If any one asked me for an example of something small and cute, she would be the first thing that would come to my mind. She had long reddish brown hair framing her heart shaped face, a nose slightly too big for her face and eyes the colour of leaf, well eye. She had a fringe of hair on the right side of her face long enough to cover her right eye, so I could only assume that both eyes were the same colour.

"I apologise for my acquaintance's behaviour, madame. I am Iris Potter, unclaimed demigod from England. This is Grover, a satyr who was sent to escort your son to the camp. I am afraid that time is not on our side. We must hurry. I will let your son fill you in on anything you have missed.", she spoke to my mom.

"It is alright. If I am going to trust my son's life in your hands, you might as well call me Sally."

She nodded at her and then went past me without even acknowledging me. What was Grover doing here and why did he bring that girl with him? The girl mentioned something about demigods and satyrs. Weren't those Mr. Brunner's myths?

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now !"

I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go! "

It was then that I saw another shocking sight. The cute girl from before had returned with their suitcases floating behind her. She was holding a wooden stick in her hand that she was using to control the movement of the suitcases. It looked like I was not the only one surprised by that. Mom and even not-Grover who brought her here was looking at her in shock.

"Stop staring at me and get to the car. We have a monster chasing us."

It snapped them out of their shock. Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked, because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.

But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"

Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said.

"I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Watching me?"

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily, "I am your friend."

"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter."

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"

"Of course."

"Then why—"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious.

"We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

I then remembered doing that weird 'ward off evil' gesture causing the door to slam onto Gabe's backside hard enough to send him flying upstairs.

"Am I a magician like her?", I asked pointing to the girl on the other side.

The said girl seemed oddly calm and content in the middle of chaos. She had a detached air about her that would have made Buddha jealous. If she had heard my question, she gave no indication of it.

"I don't really know much about her.", he said looking at her weirdly.

"I was instructed to bring her with me. I just know that she knows what is doing.", he said with respect.

"Percy," my mom said, "You are much more than a street magician. There's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared, "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in me."

"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you. "

"Boys!" my mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.

"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive. Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me.

Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Percy!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay..."

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch.

Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning. That was the only explanation.

We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is—"

"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …

"He doesn't want us ," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But..."

The doors suddenly opened startling them. They relaxed when they saw that it was the girl.

"Come out, both of you. Yes, you too Sally. We know that if you don't, the boy will continue to stay there until it arrives here.", she said.

"Silly boy. He runs away when he is told not to and wastes time arguing when its time to run.", she muttered.

I don't think she intended for us to hear it but we did. I knew that my cheeks turned red in embarrassment and my mother had an amused smile on her face despite the situation.

I got out of the car quickly and pulled the limp body of Grover out.

He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid. Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist high grass. The girl, Iris, was walking slightly behind us to the right carrying two wicked looking knives acting like a bodyguard. I didn't know where she was hiding them but having those knives in her hand changed her from small and cute to scary.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.

"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min—"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him, "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His eyesight and hearing are too poor to be reliable, a drawback of having the head of a bull. But, he, like most other animals have an amazing sense of smell with which he will soon find us. When he does, I want you to seperate from us and go challenge him to a fight."

"WHAT?"

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying. Oops.

"Percy," my mom said, "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?", I asked mom.

"It will not matter if we do not survive this. Anyway, your mother is right. You cannot defeat it with physical strength alone. You have to use his weaknesses against him. If you can trick him into smashing into a thick tree, you will have a huge advantage.", Iris spoke.

"Why can't you fight it then? Unlike me, you actually have some weapons.", I replied.

"Wait! You do not have any weapon!", she said losing her calm for the first time.

She then looked at Grover as if he was going to suddenly get up and spill the reason for not giving me a weapon or better yet give me the one he had been hiding somewhere. After a moment, she turned back to me as calm as before.

"It seems that tricking him is your only chance. I have a feeling that he is just a bait. There could be monsters waiting in the shadows ready to pounce on your back the moment you are engaged with him. You take care of the half-bull. I will watch your back."

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

I left Grover with my mom and ran off to stand in front of the pine tree.

I removed my red rain jacket and waved it screaming, "Hey stupid! Groundbeef!"

"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.

His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.

So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side. The bull-man stormed past me and smashed his head into the tree. I waited close by so that the moment he pulls his head out, I could pull the broken horn off the tree and kill him with it. It didn't happen like that. While a horn did get stuck, it was the one on the other side. Before I knew it, I felt a constricting feeling around my throat and could feel myself being lifted off the ground. My eyes soon met the gleaming hate filled black eyes. I flayed my hands about trying to find the horn. I finally found the horn but the damn thing wasn't coming out. The blackness was creeping through my vision and sleep sounded like a good idea right now but I somehow knew that if I let myself fall asleep it will be a permanent sleep. I couldn't die now. I had to make sure my mom and Grover and even the weird little girl are alright. I put all my effort and desperation into it. The horn came off so suddenly that I almost dropped it. I then plunged the horn straight into where I assumed his heart was. For a moment, I thought I missed but then he crumbled into golden dust particles leaving me to a painful fall. I let myself rest my head on the pine tree feeling tired and disoriented.

I then looked for others and saw the girl facing off with a massive dog size of a truck, Grover lying motionless on the grass and mom, well mom was nowhere nearby. It was when I looked up that I saw it. Two monsters looking very similar to Mrs. Dodds were carrying the motionless body of his mother by her hands.

"Mom"

I instantly regretted it. One of them turned to look at me with her terrifying red eyes and then turned back. They flew to a shadow and disappeared into darkness as if they had never existed. To make it worse, my cry had caused Iris to turn towards them and the hellhound pounced on her the moment she was distracted. She reacted quickly to kill the beast but not quickly enough to escape unmarked. There are three long claw marks on her cheek dripping blood.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother being taken. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Iris looking at me with sympathy and understanding in her eyes. She was quite the sight with her torn clothes, dishevelled hair and the claw marks on her cheek. I idly noticed a faded scar on the right side of her forehead, something that would have been covered up by her peculiar hair style.

"It seems the situation was much worse than Grover had let on. Don't worry. As long as your mother is alive, there is hope. We will get her back. But now, we have to get Grover and move to safety before more monsters get here.", she said.

She seemed calm but I knew that she was as affected by tonight's events as he was. She was right. I could not put a helpless Grover in danger just because I wanted to continue crying for my mother. They hauled him up and staggered down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house.

I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to them-I wasn't going to let them go.

The last thing I remember was collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.

They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."

"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."

X-X-X-X-X

A little experiment with Percy's Pov. The story will be mostly 3rd person pov unless I feel something else is better.