CH16 : The Animal Showdown


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, Percy Jackson & the Olympians or any related Movies.

"Naruto" Speech.

'Naruto" Thought.

"Katon" Jutsu/Technique/Demon talking.


They spent two days on the Amtrak train, traveling westward through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain. They weren't attacked once, but Percy couldn't relax. He felt as though they were traveling inside a display case, being observed from above and maybe even from below, with something waiting for the right opportunity.

For the rest of the day, Percy alternated between pacing the length of the train, finding it difficult to sit still, and looking out the windows. Once, he and Naruto spotted a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready as they hunted for lunch. The young centaur boy, about the size of a second-grader on a pony, caught Naruto's eye and waved, to which Naruto happily waved back. Percy glanced around the passenger car, but nobody else seemed to have noticed. The other adult passengers were engrossed in their laptops or magazines.

Later, toward evening, they caught sight of something huge moving through the woods. Percy could have sworn it was a lion, except that lions don't live wild in America, and this creature was the size of a Hummer. Its fur glinted gold in the evening light before it leaped through the trees and disappeared.

The reward money for returning Gladiola the poodle had only been enough to purchase tickets as far as Denver. They couldn't secure berths in the sleeper car, so they dozed in their seats. Percy's neck got stiff, and he tried not to drool in his sleep, with Annabeth sitting right next to him.

Annabeth remarked that Naruto was warm and tried to get closer for heat, eventually sitting on his lap and pressing her back against his strong chest, causing her to blush. Grover kept snoring and bleating, waking Percy up multiple times. Once, he shifted around, and his fake foot fell off. Naruto and Percy had to stick it back on before any other passengers noticed.

"So," Annabeth asked Percy once they had fixed Grover's sneaker, shaking her hips a bit, making Naruto's eyes twitch, "Who was in your dream that you didn't want to help?"

Percy hesitated to answer. It was the second time he had dreamt about the evil voice from the pit. He shook his head, and though Annabeth frowned slightly, she didn't press further, wishing she knew the answer. He thought about what Grover had told him, that the Furies on the bus seemed to have been looking for something. Where is it? Where?

Maybe Grover sensed his emotions. He snorted in his sleep, muttered something about vegetables, and turned his head. Annabeth readjusted his cap to cover his horns. "Percy, you know it's better to let it out," she urged.

Percy shook his head again, and Annabeth sighed, giving up. Her hand crept up to her necklace, fingering a glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree, one of her clay end-of-summer tokens.

"What would you do if it were your dad who was kidnapped?" Percy asked.

"That's easy," she replied. "I'd leave him to rot."

"You're not serious?"

Annabeth's gray eyes locked onto his. She wore the same expression she had worn in the woods at camp, the moment she drew her sword against the hellhound. "My dad has resented me since the day I was born, Percy," she said. "He never wanted a baby. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn't happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent." Naruto rubbed her shoulder to comfort her, eliciting a smile.

"But how... I mean, I guess you weren't born in a hospital..."

"I appeared on my father's doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You'd think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like, maybe he'd take some digital photos or something. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to him. When I was five, he got married and totally forgot about Athena. He got a 'regular' mortal wife and had two 'regular' mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn't exist."

Percy stared out the train window as the lights of a sleeping town passed by. "Well, at least you get a family in Camp Half-Blood," Naruto said, trying to lift Annabeth's spirits. She rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek.

"My mom married a really awful guy," Percy told her. "Grover said she did it to protect me, to hide me in the scent of a human family. Maybe that's what your dad was thinking."

Annabeth kept worrying at her necklace, pinching the gold college ring that hung with the beads. Percy and Naruto wondered why she wore it if she hated him so much.

"He doesn't care about me," she said. "His wife—my stepmom—treated me like a freak. She wouldn't let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened—you know, something with monsters—they would both look at me resentfully, like, 'How dare you put our family at risk.' Finally, I took the hint. I wasn't wanted. I ran away."

"How old were you?"

"Same age as when I started camp. Seven." Naruto winced at that.

"But... you couldn't have gone all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself."

"Not alone, no. Athena watched over me, guided me toward help. I made a couple of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway."

Percy wanted to ask what happened, but Annabeth seemed lost in sad memories. So he listened to the sound of Grover snoring and gazed out the train windows as the dark fields of Ohio raced by.

Towards the end of their second day on the train, June 13, eight days before the summer solstice, they passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis. Annabeth craned her neck to see the Gateway Arch, which looked to Naruto and Percy like a huge shopping bag handle stuck on the city.

"I want to do that," she sighed.

"What?" the duo asked, but Naruto had a feeling what she was talking about.

"Build something like that. You ever see the Parthenon, Percy?"

"Only in pictures."

"What about you, Naruto?"

"I did, last week, in Greece."

"Someday, I'm going to see it in person. I'm going to build the greatest monument to the gods, ever. Something that'll last a thousand years."

Percy laughed. "You? An architect?"

"Don't laugh, Percy, at anyone's dream. People who don't have dreams don't have much." Percy put his head down in shame while Annabeth smiled at Naruto.

"Yes, an architect. Athena expects her children to create things, not just tear them down, like a certain god of earthquakes I could mention," she taunted at the end.

Percy watched the churning brown water of the Mississippi below. "Sorry," Annabeth said. "That was mean."

"Can't we work together a little?" he pleaded. "I mean, didn't Athena and Poseidon ever cooperate?"

Annabeth had to think about it. "I guess... the chariot," she said tentatively. "My mom invented it, but Poseidon created horses out of the crests of waves. So they had to work together to make it complete."

"Then we can cooperate, too. Right?"

As they rode into the city, Annabeth watched as the Arch disappeared behind a hotel.

"I suppose," she said at last.

They pulled into the Amtrak station downtown. The intercom announced a three-hour layover before departing for Denver.

Grover stretched. Before he was even fully awake, he said, "Food."

"Come on, goat boy," Annabeth said. "Sightseeing."

"Sightseeing?" Percy and Grover asked.

"The Gateway Arch," she said. "This may be my only chance to ride to the top. Are you coming or not?"

Grover and Percy exchanged looks. Percy wanted to say no, but Naruto already beat him to it.

"Sure," Naruto said as Annabeth took his hand and dragged him away. Grover shrugged. "As long as there's a snack bar without monsters."

The Arch was about a mile from the train station. Late in the day, the lines to get in weren't that long. They threaded their way through the underground museum, looking at covered wagons and other relics from the 1800s. It wasn't all that thrilling, but Annabeth kept telling the group interesting facts about how the Arch was built, and Grover kept passing Percy jelly beans, so it was okay.

Percy kept looking around, though, at the other people in line. Only Naruto was the one who listened to Annabeth, and she didn't release her hold on his hand yet.

"You smell anything?" Percy murmured to Grover.

He took his nose out of the jelly bean bag long enough to sniff. "Underground," he said distastefully. "Underground air always smells like monsters. Probably doesn't mean anything."

But something felt wrong to Percy. He had a feeling they shouldn't be here. "Guys," Percy said. "You know the gods' symbols of power?"

Naruto and Annabeth had been in the middle of reading about the construction equipment used to build the Arch; Naruto was still reading, but Annabeth looked over. "Yeah?"

"Well, Hade-"

Grover cleared his throat. "We're in a public place... You mean, our friend downstairs?"

"Um, right," Percy said. "Our friend way downstairs. Doesn't he have a hat like Annabeth's?"

"You mean the Helm of Darkness," Annabeth said. "Yeah, that's his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the winter solstice council meeting."

"He was there?" Percy asked.

She nodded. "It's the only time he's allowed to visit Olympus—the darkest day of the year. But his helm is a lot more powerful than my invisibility hat, if what I've heard is true..."

"It allows him to become darkness," Grover confirmed. "He can melt into shadow or pass through walls. He can't be touched, or seen, or heard. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?"

"But then... how do we know he's not here right now, watching us?" he asked.

Annabeth and Grover exchanged looks. "We don't," Grover said.

"Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better," he said. "Got any blue jelly beans left?"

Naruto sighed as he tore his eyes away from the construction list. "Percy, I can see energy signatures miles away. Even our friend downstairs cannot hide from my eyes. Nothing can," he said somewhat darkly. He had the eyes of the Juubi; he still remembered when his uncle used the Helm of Darkness, he still could see him just like in daylight.

They gave him a grateful look.

They were going to ride to the top of the Arch. They got shoehorned into the car with this big fat lady and her dog, a Chihuahua with a rhinestone collar. Percy figured maybe the dog was a seeing-eye Chihuahua because none of the guards said a word about it.

They started going up, inside the Arch.

Naruto looked at the lady and the Chihuahua warily. He found the dog oddly smelling like a lion, goat, and snake all together. His eyes widened. 'Chimera. This is going to be an interesting fight,' he thought excitedly.

"No parents?" the fat lady asked them.

She had beady eyes, pointy, coffee-stained teeth, a floppy denim hat, and a denim dress that bulged so much she looked like a blue-jean blimp.

"They're below," Annabeth told her. "Scared of heights."

"Oh, the poor darlings," the Chihuahua growled.

The woman said, "Now, now, sonny. Behave." The dog had beady eyes like its owner, intelligent and vicious.

Percy said, "Sonny. Is that his name?"

"No," the lady told him. She smiled, as if that cleared everything up.

At the top of the Arch, the observation deck reminded me of a tin can with carpeting. Rows of tiny windows looked out over the city on one side and the river on the other. The view was okay, it's a confined space six hundred feet in the air.

Annabeth kept talking about structural supports and how she would've made the windows bigger and designed a see-through floor. She probably could've stayed up there for hours, but the park ranger announced that the observation deck would be closing in a few minutes.

Naruto steered Percy, Grover, and Annabeth toward the exit, loaded them into the elevator, and Percy and Naruto were about to get in themselves when Naruto realized there were already two other tourists inside. No room for them.

The park ranger said, "Next car, sir."

"We'll get out," Annabeth said. "We'll wait with you."

But that was going to mess everybody up and take even more time.

"No, it takes more time, and we don't have that much. We take the stairs," Naruto said.

Grover and Annabeth both looked nervous, but they let the elevator door slide shut. Their car disappeared down the ramp. Now the only people left on the observation deck were me, a little boy with his parents, the park ranger, and the fat lady with her Chihuahua.

Naruto activated his eyes while Percy smiled uneasily at the fat lady. She smiled back, her forked tongue flickering between her teeth.

Her Chihuahua jumped down and started yapping at them.

"Now, now, sonny," the lady said. "Does this look like a good time? We have all these nice people here."

"Doggie!" said the little boy. "Look, a doggie!"

His parents pulled him back. The Chihuahua bared its teeth at them, foam dripping from its black lips.

Naruto glared at the Chihuahua back and bared his own sharp canines, making the dog whimper a bit.

"Well, son," the fat lady sighed. "If you insist."

"Um, did you just call that Chihuahua your son?" Percy asked, feeling a bad feeling about this.

"Chimera, dear," the fat lady corrected. "Not a Chihuahua. It's an easy mistake to make."

She rolled up her denim sleeves, revealing that the skin of her arms was scaly and green. When she smiled, they saw that her teeth were fangs. The pupils of her eyes were sideways slits, like a reptile's.

'Echidna' Naruto thought.

The Chihuahua barked louder, and with each bark, it grew. First to the size of a Doberman, then to a lion. The bark became a roar.

The little boy screamed. His parents pulled him back toward the exit, straight into the park ranger, who stood, paralyzed, gaping at the monster.

The Chimera was now so tall its back rubbed against the roof. It had the head of a lion with a blood-caked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind. The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized dog tag was now easy to read: CHIMERA-RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS-IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS-EXT. 954.

They were ten feet away from the Chimera's bloody maw, and Percy knew that as soon as they moved, the creature would lunge.

The snake lady made a hissing noise that might've been laughter. "Be honored, Percy Jackson. Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna!"

'Dad, you little piece of sparkles, you're giving us more trouble,' Naruto groaned internally.

Percy stared at her. All he could think to say was, "Isn't that a kind of anteater?"

She howled, her reptilian face turning brown and green with rage. "I hate it when people say that! I hate Australia! Naming that ridiculous animal after me. For that, Percy Jackson, my son shall destroy you!"

The Chimera charged, its lion teeth gnashing. Percy managed to leap aside and dodge the bite.

The lion lunged at Naruto and tried to take a bite out of him, but the lion passed Naruto, who was doing nothing to dodge.

'Oh, intangibility, how much I love you,' Naruto amusingly thought.

Percy ended up next to the family and the park ranger, who were all screaming now, trying to pry open the emergency exit doors.

"Percy, keep working on that door; I'll keep the cat away," Naruto said, making the lion roar in rage at the nickname he was given.

The Chimera opened its mouth, emitting a stench like the world's largest barbecue pit, and shot a column of flame straight at Naruto.

Naruto flashed through handsigns. "Suiton: Bakusui Shōha (Water Style: Exploding Water Shockwave)" Naruto spit out a great volume of water from his mouth, swallowing up and crushing the Chimera and hitting the column of fire with the advancing surge. Naruto rode the wave, allowing him to move at high speed and attack the enemy.

Percy dove through the small ocean that Naruto created, the carpet soaked with water. Where he had been standing a moment before was a small ocean of the Arch.

'Great,' he thought. 'We just drowned a national monument.'

Naruto brought out the Kusanagi and extended its sword across the Chimera. He swung the sword and cut the unexpected diamond-back on the back of the Chimera.

The Chimera roared in pain and rushed toward him, but Naruto was faster. He surfed around the Chimera and stabbed the goat on its body and cut the goat's eyes. The Chimera cried in pain.

Naruto smirked. He flashed through handsigns. The whole place was filled with water now.

"Chidori Nagashi (Chidori Stream)"

Lightning gathered around Naruto's hand, the high concentration of electricity producing a sound that oddly reminiscent Percy of many birds chirping.

Naruto thrust his hand to the ground, and the lightning traveled toward the Chimera. The Chimera roared in pain before Naruto gathered Indra chakra; the lightning color changed from blue to black.

The Chimera dissolved to dust, and Echidna had a look of pure shock on her face before she growled, "We will meet again, Son of Zeus." She bitch-slapped Percy into the water before disappearing in a wisp of smoke.

Naruto looked where Echidna had been. "I'll be waiting."

Suddenly, they heard the boy with the family. "Mommy, look, that cool guy just made lightning appear in his hand; he was so cool!" The boy gushed, making Naruto sweatdrop.

"That's nice, dear," the mother told her child.

A news lady was talking for the camera. "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

Then she saw Percy and appeared in front of him.

"Let's go, Percy, before we become famous and not in the good way," Naruto said as Percy and Naruto disappeared in a flash of darkness.


"... an adolescent boy," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities..."

Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere. Percy almost lost hope of ever finding Annabeth and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, "Perrr-cy!"

They turned and got tackled by Grover's bear hug—or goat hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"

Annabeth stood behind them, trying to look angry, but even she seemed relieved to see them, especially Naruto. "We can't leave you two alone for five minutes! What happened?"

"Oh, it's nothing, just some fat old lady needing some help to tame her Chihuahua. We had an animal showdown," Naruto waved his hand of ash and smoke nonchalantly as Annabeth glared at him.

"I sort of fell," Percy said, trying not to laugh at Naruto's excuse.

"Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

Behind them, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. Naruto recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua-"

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! There's this boy who spits a waterfall out of his mouth and—and he can make lightning out of his hand." Then she saw Naruto. "There he is! That's the boy!"

"Yeah, let's get going before the police get to us," Naruto said with a sweatdrop.

He turned quickly and pulled Annabeth, Percy, and Grover. They disappeared into distortion.


"What's going on?" Annabeth demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

Percy told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna, his high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message.

"Whoa," said Grover. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."

Before Annabeth could respond, they passed another reporter doing a news break, and Percy almost froze in his tracks when he said, "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."

They ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.

"First things first," Percy told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!"

Thanks to Naruto's Genjutsu, they made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. They got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind them.