Percy's POV
And with that, the monster lunged at me, snarling.
Oh crap. Instinctively, I ducked and rolled to the side, shooting up to my feet to uncap Riptide while the monster turned to face me. I had kind of hoped I didn't actually have to make him explode into dust, because he was a pretty nice monster.
'Cause that wasn't a weird sentence at all.
"Stand and fight, little hero!" he bellowed, charging me again. Damn, it looked like I would have to kill him after all.
I feinted to the left, and the monster shot to the right. I moved smoothly with him, wielding Riptide like an extension of my arm. The point of my sword just grazed his hyena leg as the monster launched himself into the air. I cursed softly as he extended wings and circled above me. I had forgotten that this guy was apparently part eagle. With lightning agility, the monster tucked in his wings and dove at me, cawing wildly. I waited until the last moment, then shot out of the way.
The monster simply turned and followed after me. Well, that plan didn't appear to work out so nicely.
I fought the urge to book it out of the way, filled with the knowledge that the monster's lethal beak was about two seconds away from ripping through me. Instantaneously, I felt an inhuman power surge through my veins, banishing the pricks of fear, and I turned to face the monster. He was rocketing toward me, but his motion seemed to slow down before my eyes. I stood calmly, waiting for him to get close enough to me and-
-slashed Riptide out to slice the monster's eagle head clean off. The head dropped onto the sandy grass with a sickening plop, while the rest of his body exploded in a gritty yellow sand, spraying me and two monsters that had strayed too close.
I stood in silence, staring at the chopped-off eagle head lying in front of me. I suddenly felt a little dizzy, and dropped to my knees. I had forgotten that using the Achilles power drained me so much, damn. I still had five more monsters to fight!
I was surprised when the monsters remaining burst into cheers. "What?" I croaked, my throat dry. "You aren't mad that I killed him?"
"Don't worry about it, kid. He'll be back in five minutes or so," one of the monsters assured me. "Whenever a hero defeats us, we only stay dead for about five or ten minutes, then regenerate. However, you don't have to fight him again once he comes back." He paused, scratching under a scale on his chest. "It's kind of a precaution so that heroes don't get too impatient after defeating a few of us. We don't want them to try to get the water early without us all here to stop them."
"Oh, okay," I said, nodding. That made sense: I definitely would've been tempted to just grab the water and run if there were only one or two monsters left. "Who should I fight next then?"
"Oh no, buddy. You can't fight another one of us right now!" The monsters all looked alarmed at my apparent ignorance. "Haven't you heard the tales?"
"What tales?" I asked through gritted teeth. This was a waste of time. Every minute that went by was another minute where I wasn't curing Annabeth. Another minute toward maybe not ever seeing her even smile at me again.
For some reason, the monsters felt like this was a good time to bust out into a poetry slam.
"A hero, saddened by his lover's decline,
Shall venture out to the ocean brine.
There he shall fight with the monsters of old,
A battle magnificent, a tale to be told.
Fight with one the first day,
Another the next,
He shall wait with impatience,
But do not be vexed.
Wait twenty-four hours, and then you may,
Do battle with your next foe the next day.
But hero, beware, for there's always a catch.
If you don't defeat all in time,
Your lover's heart is forever latched."
The monsters all recited this in unison, their deep voices rumbling dramatically.
I stared at them. "Pretty poem, but what does it have to do with me?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at them.
The monster doing the talking sighed impatiently. "It means you have to wait another day until you can fight the next one of us!" he clarified, as if it should have been obvious. I, for one, didn't understand why he couldn't have just said that in the first place. "Heroes today are so stupid," the monster muttered, watching as I digested this information.
I blinked as I finally realized how this affected me in a pretty big way. "So I have to wait six days before I can get the water?" I yelled at them.
They nodded patiently.
"That sucks! Who made these rules?" I demanded angrily. I didn't have time to spare here!
"Zeus," was the unison answer. The monsters looked at me calmly. They knew I couldn't argue with the lord of the skies, no matter how badly I wanted to.
"Well this is pretty craptastic," I muttered.
Suddenly, the eagle-hyena monster reappeared in a flash of bronze light, landing lightly in front of me. He looked distastefully at his head lying on the ground.
"Can you please get rid of that? It's making me nauseous," he complained.
"Uh, sure." I could see where he was coming from. I guess it would be pretty uncomfortable to see your own head lying decapitated from your body in front of you. Gingerly, I used the tip of Riptide to nudge the head. It rolled over to the side of the clearing. "What should I do with it?" I asked him.
"Take a feather off it, and the head will disappear," the monster instructed me, primly averting his eyes. I approached the head, reaching down and plucking a long white feather off the top. The rest of it disappeared in a burst of yellow grit. The curved yellow beak sat atop a pile of the dust. "You can keep my beak too," the monster told me, apparently satisfied with the disappearance of the head. I picked it up, being careful not to touch the sharp edges.
One of the monsters handed me a metal case the size of a boot box. "You can put all of the trophies you claim from us in this box," the monster holding the box explained. I nodded and took the box from him. Opening the lid, I dropped in the feather and the beak. I noted how the feather floated gently down, while the beak clanged in and scored a deep scratch in the metal. Yikes, that was sharp. I was really glad he hadn't had the chance to dig that into me. I would've been a goner pretty quickly.
"So, uh, what do I do now?" I asked, putting the box down next to my backpack, which I had set aside before I limboed for the monsters. "If I have to wait a whole day between fights, I guess I have to wait around a lot."
"Well, first you should eat," the eagle-hyena said authoritatively. "Then we can par-tay!" The monsters yelled happily.
I grinned, picking up the box and slinging my backpack across my back as I followed the monsters to the food tables. They tore open boxes of pizza, and we all dug in. I could get used to this, I thought.
Except, I needed to take this seriously, so I could get the water as quickly as I could and get back to camp to cure Annabeth, I reminded myself. This was a serious quest. A deadly quest. A quest that held one of the most important features of my life in the balance.
"Who's ready to LIMBO?" A monster yelled. The other monsters swarmed over to him, shouting happily. I hesitated for a moment. What if it was a trap?
Then again, they honestly just seemed to enjoy limbo. And I had already done it once without them chopping my head off as I went under the stick.
I grabbed two more pieces of pizza and followed them. Maybe I could have some fun while I worked.
Edited to a somewhat satisfying degree as of 7/2/15.
HA HA! There! I know that this is another insanely short chapter, but it took me awhile to think of how to play out the fight scene. Did you guys like my poem? I made that up on the spot. =D I will try to force myself to write more fight scenes asap! One down, five to go…
Review please! It does make me update faster… =D
~TMI~