Chapter 15: We fight a Pokémon at Starbucks

[David's Pov]

Confession time; I love reptiles

They're large and scary, but all-together peaceful beasts of a being. Just look at Alligators, you'll see what I mean.

So, when I saw a small tortoise walking up to me while I was waiting behind a small line to get drinks, my instinct was to pick it up. You know, in case someone tripped over or stepped on it by a mistake.

I was going to call out for the owner. What I didn't expect, however, was the tortoise to be flaming hot.

"Gah!"

People at the shop turned at my yelp. The tortoise got flung into the air.

I was worried that it'll die in the fall, but the thing started to expand in mid-air.

It landed on the counter with a huge 'thud', and then the counter started to melt like ice cream in the microwave (Don't ask how I know that. I was a curious kid, ok?).

The clerk behind the counter was looking at me in bewilderment.

"Kid? You shouldn't throw your pet like this."

"It's not my pet"

The tortoise was growing larger. The height of it, measuring from its belly to the top of the shell, was nearing mine, which made it one of the biggest tortoises I've ever seen. Also, it was smoldering hot, steam erupting from its body as red-hot lava started boiling out under its feet.

My brain was still trying to process what was going on when it opened its jaw.

"Get down!"

Annabeth saved my life by tackling me, just like at Westover Hall.

The next thing I noticed was a huge 'Bang!' that nearly blew out my eardrums, and a gush of cold outside air swiping across my face. Customers all screamed and ran out through a huge hole that was opened by the explosion, yelling something about a gas leak explosion.

Thankfully, no one was dead.

Un-thankfully, the tortoise was now at least 7 feet tall, towering over both of us with lava flowing out by his belly. Then, a silver arrow whizzed past and pierced one of its red eyes, and it roared out like a dinosaur in pain, looking up at the sky.

"A Tophuchĕlys!"

"A tofu cylinder?"

Annabeth pulled me up to my feet, looking as if I'm crazy or dumb.

Probably both.

"A lava turtle! They live inside volcanos! They are usually under one of Hephaestus's forges and heat the fire; what is one doing here?!"

"I don't think there's any myth related to them."

The tofu turtle growled again and started to heat up. The second arrow burst into flames before it even reach it, turning to ash.

Zoë cursed in Latin, I think and darted over the knocked-over tables and chairs as it bellowed out a giant ball of lava. It splattered on the furniture, melting them into a puddle of goo in a matter of seconds.

"Of course, do thee think that men kept track of every single monster during the millennials?"

"Yes?"

Zoë snorted and flipped her braided hair over her shoulder.

"Even now, with thine 'science' and 'technology', there are millions of regular animals and beasts undetected by men. What thee know from the 'myths' are only the smallest fraction of the entire globe of monsters."

Ok, so this one is a new monster that I know nothing about.

I was about to ask how Annabeth knows anything about it, but it belched out lava at us again and we had to scatter for our lives.

"An uncharted lava tortoise. Got it. How do we kill it?"

"We need to smash its shell. Oh, If only we had Tyson!"

I didn't have a faintest idea who 'Tyson' was, but if the idea was to smash its shell open…

I looked at the shell of the tofu monster. It had a lot of crack emitting steams and smoke every second, but the dark brown shell itself looked like a hard material.

It roared out again. It seemed to try to crawl towards us, but it was melting everything underneath it, so it kept slipping down to the bellow.

"Wait, what happens if the lava reaches the gas pipe under the floor?"

Annabeth paled just at the idea.

Oh boy, we have a time limit now.

I lunged at the tortoise with my sword in hand; I didn't know what I was even going to do, and I regretted my choice as soon as I got in 3 feet of it. The heat was making me sweat like I'm in the desert, and steams and smoke surrounding it made my eyes water up and hard to breathe.

It roared out again, and I ducked just out of pure guess. A handful of lava landed 2 inches next to my face and sizzled loudly as it burned the asphalt floor.

I made a blind thrust, aiming for the crack in the shell. But my blade just bounced off without leaving a scratch; thankfully the blade itself didn't heat up for reasons I couldn't tell but was certainly glad about.

Then I heard Zoë chant something in an eerie voice and eerier language, and a set of arrows flew straight through the heat and slipped inside to the shell, where it exploded with a muffled 'bang!'

I scrambled back out of the cloud of smoke and steam as the tofu turtle roared, drops of lava raining around it. Zoë was watching with an uneasy expression.

"I never thought I'd use fart arrows like that."

"Fart arrows?"

"Do not question my arsenals, boy. They worked far better than thy simple-minded charge."

"That I can't argue."

Through the steams and smoke, the tortoise was bellowing and trembling in pain as blood like lava gushed out beneath the shell. The shell had more cracks in it as well. But as Zoë started to mutter the same eerie chant and load her bow with more 'fart arrows', it fired another ball of lava at us.

Zoë jumped away like a gymnast and let loose her arrows. But this time, steam furiously erupted out from the cracks and knocked them out of their line of fire. The arrows landed on the outer shell and expelled a cloud of yellow smoke, which exploded a second later.

Another roar covered up Annabeth yelling out something in shock, but I was more focused on the tofu tortoise. Its shell was kept intact after the explosion and was glaring at Zoë with its one eye full of fury.

That's both good news and bad news. Zoë was forced to weave in and out of various objects to dodge the relentless fire of lava from it, but it also had no interest other than getting her.

How does one break open a shell of a tortoise…?

It's mostly considered impossible since that was their compensation for being slow and sluggish. Their only way of protection against predators. But the predators like eagles and Alligators countered it by smashing it with an incredible force.

Alligators used their gifted jaw strength, which was inapplicable.

And the eagles… dropped it off from big height.

We need to fling that thing in the air. Somehow.

"Percy!"

But Annabeth's scream took me off-guard. She was looking at the side alleyway, from which three people were rushing out. One was Argus the driver, other was Percy, and also Luna?

Annabeth was waving like a straggler trying to get the attention of a bypassing plane, and was also pointing at the line of water trucks.

Percy stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes to focusing on something, and then

Fwoosh!

A tyrant of water burst out from the tanks. Gallons on gallons upon water swirled up into the airwhich was quite a sight, I tell youthen it was dropped onto the tofu tortoise with a loud splash.

Hot steam erupted once more. But this time, with a far more wide of a radios, covering the entire stop with thick mist. I heard Argus's grunt of discomfort between loud roars of pain from the tofu-tortoise, and made my way to him.

"Argus!"

I grabbed on to his arm and he flinched in his spot, then glared at me. I had accidently slapped on one of his eyes.

"Sorry, but it's urgent: how good are you at javelin throwing?"

He gave me a quizzical look with 20~30 eyes.

[3rd Person Pov]

The Tophuchĕlys was far from getting defeated; even though a torrent of water splashing down on it did a considerable amount of damage on its shell, and nearly cooled it off to the point of turning it to a stone.

"Rrrrr…"

It still held on and burned its non-existing-heart with rage.

It could see clearly through the mist and smoke, but the opponents couldn't. Not as well as it did. It roared out once more, and pools of lava rose into the air and flew back inside to the shell, trying to heat it once more.

It saw two females darting to the side, where a new large gash was present and expelled a big boulder from its mouth. The lava that was cooled down has solidified into those, and it was still a force to be reckoned with.

The two girls dodged out of the way and fired a volley of arrows inside its shell, where it exploded again. The Tophuchĕlys growled, faltering in its legs as the knees buckled down, but even with the increased numbers, the explosion was weaker in total than before.

That made it see the advantage of keeping a low temperatureit still needed to be higher than a certain temperature to not be a statue, but it could still attack with boulders if that bar was surpassed.

Instead, it roared out again, sending a cascade of lava from its shell over to the other two heroes; one being that blasted Poseidon's offspring.

Another set of arrows flewthis time, normal arrows that landed at one of its knees making it crumple down in its spot.

Tophuchĕlys growled again, but it wasn't an agile monster, to begin with. Not being able to move was nothing but a minor inconvenience.

It rolled down some smaller but still dangerousboulders from its maw towards the two girls, who had to pull back to dodge those.

The mist was slowly fading away so that the advantage of it having a piercing eye was getting weaker. It growled out of impatience when it saw one of the big boulders it had belched out before, suddenly rolling into a stop in front of it.

"Argus, now!"

David darted out from behind the boulder and yelled out, and then everyone witnessed what no other campers had ever seen in their life.

With a bellowing yell of fury, Argus the giant stomped his way to the Tophuchĕlys.

He was no longer human-sized, but rather a towering 10 feet giant of a man. His hundred eyes all focused on his mark, along with the signpost of Starbucks held in his hand as the world's longest javelin.

He thrust it with all his might, and the flat part of the sign with the mermaid got lodged right under Tophuchĕlys's stomach. For a second, everyone thought he had somehow missed his mark with all of his eyes, but then they were surprised once more.

"Do, Not, Hurt, The, Campers!"

"Argus!?"

Argus spelled out each word, from his mouth, and he pounced up into the air to land straight down, pushing all of his extensive mass on the other side of the pole.

The metal pole bent down and creaked in agony…until it sprang up, at the other side.

"Rrrrraaaahhhh!?"

The Tophuchĕlys roared out in surprise and fear as it was shot up straight into the air. High, high up, it went, higher than the clouds. And then…it fell on the worn-down Starbucks with an ear-splitting CRASH!

The tortoise had landed on its shell, which shattered into pieces on the impact.

And before anyone can properly fathom what happened, it dissolved into a powder of golden dust.

"Well," David's voice rang out in the silence. "We started with a bang, I suppose."

[David's Pov]

Argus was one of those guys who never spoke. Like, ever.

At least that's what Annabeth stammered on about as she confronted him about the action prior.

She kept on going "You grew you threw you talked how in the world" as Argus rubbed his neck sheepishly. His face was bright red, but the eyes at his arms were arched up into a smile. Percy was also gaping at what he saw, but he was also busy putting out the fire still burning here and there.

Meanwhile, I wanted to strangle myself for the terrible pun I just made and was considering asking Zoë to do so when she walked up next to me. Her expression was perplexed. She was also holding Luna by her ear.

"Thee cut off the signpost."

"Uh, yeah."

Luna was desperately sending me glances with "Help! My ear is getting torn off!" vibes, until Zoë noticed where I was looking at, and relinquished her grip with a sigh like a mother punishing her misbehaving child.

She turned her eyes back to me. She had…a quizzical glint in her eyes. As if I was some kind of a rare animal that she had never seen once in her life before.

"Thy planned to flip the Tophuchĕlys."

"Yes…?"

Zoë bit her lip.

I had no idea why she was asking me this, but he was giving me a sort of glare, the one she gave when she didn't like something about me, which was respectively everything.

Then, she heavily opened her lips.

"Well done."

I'd say Chiron was better at complimenting people.

Ah, yes. We are at the height of romance here, people.

Also yes, Argus did talk and also grew into a giant. He used to be one in the OG myths and it kind of ticked me off that he didn't do much if anything while being the 'protector'.