The Sea of Monsters - Chapter 18

Chapter 18



 THE PARTY PONIES
 INVADE
 
 "One on one," I challenged Luke. "What are you afraid of?"
 Luke curled his lip. The soldiers who were about to kill us hesitated, waiting for his order.
 Before he could say anything, Agrius, the bear-man, burst onto the deck leading a flying horse. It was
the first pure-black pegasus I'd ever seen, with wings like a giant raven. The pegasus mare bucked and
whinnied. I could understand her thoughts. She was calling Agrius and Luke some names so bad Chiron
would've washed her muzzle out with saddle soap.
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 "Sir!" Agrius called, dodging a pegasus hoof. "Your steed is ready!"
 Luke kept his eyes on me.
 "I told you last summer, Percy," he said. "You can't bait me into a fight."
 "And you keep avoiding one," I noticed. "Scared your warriors will see you get whipped?"
 Luke glanced at his men, and he saw I'd trapped him. If he backed down now, he would look weak. If
he fought me, he'd lose valuable time chasing after Clarisse. For my part, the best I could hope for was to
distract him, giving my friends a chance to escape. If anybody could think of a plan to get them out of
there, Annabeth could. On the down-side, I knew how good Luke was at sword-fighting.
 "I'll kill you quickly," he decided, and raised his weapon. Backbiter was a foot longer than my own
sword. Its blade glinted with an evil gray-and-gold light where the human steel had been melded with
celestial bronze. I could almost feel the blade fighting against itself, like two opposing mag-nets bound
together. I didn't know how the blade had been made, but I sensed a tragedy. Someone had died in the
process. Luke whistled to one of his men, who threw him a round leather-and-bronze shield.
 He grinned at me wickedly.
 "Luke," Annabeth said, "at least give him a shield."
 "Sorry, Annabeth," he said. "You bring your own equip-ment to this party."
 The shield was a problem. Fighting two-handed with just a sword gives you more power, but fighting
one-handed with a shield gives you better defense and versatility. There are more moves, more options,
more ways to kill. I thought back to Chiron, who'd told me to stay at camp no matter what, and learn to
fight. Now I was going to pay for not lis-tening to him.
 Luke lunged and almost killed me on the first try. His sword went under my arm, slashing through my
shirt and grazing my ribs.
 I jumped back, then counterattacked with Riptide, but Luke slammed my blade away with his shield.
 "My, Percy," Luke chided. "You're out of practice."
 He came at me again with a swipe to the head. I parried, returned with a thrust. He sidestepped easily.
 The cut on my ribs stung. My heart was racing. When Luke lunged again, I jumped backward into the
swimming pool and felt a surge of strength. I spun underwater, creat-ing a funnel cloud, and blasted out of
the deep end, straight at Luke's face.
 The force of the water knocked him down, spluttering and blinded. But before I could strike, he rolled
aside and was on his feet again.
 I attacked and sliced off the edge of his shield, but that didn't even faze him. He dropped to a crouch
and jabbed at my legs. Suddenly my thigh was on fire, with a pain so intense I collapsed. My jeans were
ripped above the knee. I was hurt. I didn't know how badly. Luke hacked downward and I rolled behind
a deck chair. I tried to stand, but my leg wouldn't take the weight.
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 "Perrrrrcy!" Grover bleated.
 I rolled again as Luke's sword slashed the deck chair in half, metal pipes and all.
 I clawed toward the swimming pool, trying hard not to black out. I'd never make it. Luke knew it, too.
He advanced slowly, smiling. The edge of his sword was tinged with red.
 "One thing I want you to watch before you die, Percy." He looked at the bear-man Oreius, who was still
holding Annabeth and Grover by the necks. "You can eat your din-ner now, Oreius. Bon appetit."
 "He-he! He-he!" The bear-man lifted my friends and bared his teeth.
 That's when all Hades broke loose.
 Whish!
 A red-feathered arrow sprouted from Oreius's mouth. With a surprised look on his hairy face, he
crumpled to the deck.
 "Brother!" Agrius wailed. He let the pegasus's reins go slack just long enough for the black steed to kick
him in the head and fly away free over Miami Bay.
 For a split second, Luke's guards were too stunned to do anything except watch the bear twins' bodies
dissolve into smoke.
 Then there was a wild chorus of war cries and hooves thundering against metal. A dozen centaurs
charged out of the main stairwell.
 "Ponies!" Tyson cried with delight.
 My mind had trouble processing everything I saw. Chiron was among the crowd, but his relatives were
almost nothing like him. There were centaurs with black Arabian stallion bodies, others with gold
palomino coats, others with orange-and-white spots like paint horses. Some wore brightly colored
T-shirts with Day-Glo letters that said PARTY PONIES: SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER. Some were
armed with bows, some with baseball bats, some with paintball guns. One had his face painted like a
Comanche warrior and was waving a large orange Styrofoam hand making a big Number I. Another was
bare-chested and painted entirely green. A third had googly-eye glasses with the eyeballs bouncing
around on Slinky coils, and one of those baseball caps with soda-can-and-straw attachments on either
side.
 They exploded onto the deck with such ferocity and color that for a moment even Luke was stunned. I
couldn't tell whether they had come to celebrate or attack.
 Apparently both. As Luke was raising his sword to rally his troops, a centaur shot a custom-made arrow
with a leather boxing glove on the end. It smacked Luke in the face and sent him crashing into the
swimming pool.
 His warriors scattered. I couldn't blame them. Facing the hooves of a rearing stallion is scary enough, but
when it's a centaur, armed with a bow and whooping it  up in a soda-drinking hat, even the bravest warrior
would retreat.
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 "Come get some!" yelled one of the party ponies.
 They let loose with their paintball guns. A wave of blue and yellow exploded against Luke's warriors,
blinding them and splattering them from head to toe. They tried to run, only to slip and fall.
 Chiron galloped toward Annabeth and Grover, neatly plucked them off the deck, and deposited them on
his back.
 I tried to get up, but my wounded leg still felt like it was on fire.
 Luke was crawling out of the pool.
 "Attack, you fools.'" he ordered his troops. Somewhere down below deck, a large alarm bell thrummed.
 I knew any second we would be swamped by Luke's reinforcements. Already, his warriors were getting
over their surprise, coming at the centaurs with swords and spears drawn.
 Tyson slapped half a dozen of them aside, knocking them over the guardrail into Miami Bay. But more
warriors were coming up the stairs.
 "Withdraw, brethren!" Chiron said.
 "You won't get away with this, horse man!" Luke shouted. He raised his sword, but got smacked in the
face with another boxing glove arrow, and sat down hard in a deck chair.
 A palomino centaur hoisted me onto his back. "Dude, get your big friend!"
 "Tyson!" I yelled. "Come on!"
 Tyson dropped the two warriors he was about to tie into a knot and jogged after us. He jumped on the
centaur's back.
 "Dude!" the centaur groaned, almost buckling under Tyson's weight. "Do the words 'low-carb diet' mean
any-thing to you?"
 Luke's warriors were organizing themselves into a pha-lanx. But by the time they were ready to
advance, the cen-taurs had galloped to the edge of the deck and fearlessly jumped the guardrail, as if it
were a steeplechase and not ten stories above the ground. I was sure we were going to die. We
plummeted toward the docks, but the centaurs hit the asphalt with hardly a jolt and galloped off,
whooping and yelling taunts at thePrincess Andromeda as we raced into the streets of downtown
Miami.
 
 I have no idea what the Miamians thought as we galloped by.
 Streets and buildings began to blur as the centaurs picked up speed. It felt as if space were
compacting—as if each centaur step took us miles and miles. In no time, we'd left the city behind. We
raced through marshy fields of high grass and ponds and stunted trees.
 Finally, we found ourselves in a trailer park at the edge of a lake. The trailers were all horse trailers,
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tricked out with televisions and mini-refrigerators and mosquito netting. We were in a centaur camp.
 "Dude!" said a party pony as he unloaded his gear. "Did you see that bear guy? He was all like: 'Whoa, I
have an arrow in my mouth!'"
 The centaur with the googly-eye glasses laughed. "That was awesome! Head slam!"
 The two centaurs charged at each other full-force and knocked heads, then went staggering off in
different direc-tions with crazy grins on their faces.
 Chiron sighed. He set Annabeth and Grover down on a picnic blanket next to me. "I really wish my
cousins wouldn't slam their heads together. They don't have the brain cells to spare."
 "Chiron," I said, still stunned by the fact that he was here. "You saved us."
 He gave me a dry smile. "Well now, I couldn't very well let you die, especially since you've cleared my
name."
 "But how did you know where we were?" Annabeth asked.
 "Advanced planning, my dear. I figured you would wash up near Miami if you made it out of the Sea of
Monsters alive. Almost everything strange washes up near Miami."
 "Gee, thanks," Grover mumbled.
 "No, no," Chiron said. "I didn't mean ... Oh, never mind. I am glad to see you, my young satyr. The point
is, I was able to eavesdrop on Percy's Iris-message and trace the signal. Iris and I have been friends for
centuries. I asked her to alert me to any important communications in this area. It then took no effort to
convince my cousins to ride to your aid. As you see, centaurs can travel quite fast when we wish to.
Distance for us is not the same as distance for humans."
 I looked over at the campfire, where three party ponies were teaching Tyson to operate a paintball gun.
I hoped they knew what they were getting into.
 "So what now?" I asked Chiron. "We just let Luke sail away? He's got Kronos aboard that ship. Or
parts of him, anyway."
 Chiron knelt, carefully folding his front legs under-neath him. He opened the medicine pouch on his belt
and started to treat my wounds. "I'm afraid, Percy, that today has been something of a draw. We didn't
have the strength of numbers to take that ship. Luke was not organized enough to pursue us. Nobody
won."
 "But we got the Fleece!" Annabeth said. "Clarisse is on her way back to camp with it right now."
 Chiron nodded, though he still looked uneasy. "You are all true heroes. And as soon as we get Percy
fixed up, you must return to Half-Blood Hill. The centaurs shall carry you."
 "You're coming, too?" I asked.
 "Oh yes, Percy. I'll be relieved to get home. My brethren here simply do not appreciate Dean Martin's
music. Besides, I must have some words with Mr. D. There's the rest of the summer to plan. So much
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training to do. And I want to see ... I'm curious about the Fleece."
 I didn't know exactly what he meant, but it made me worried about what Luke had said: I was going to
let you take the Fleece ... once I was done with it.
 Had he just been lying? I'd learned with Kronos there was usually a plan within a plan. The titan lord
wasn't called the Crooked One for nothing. He had ways of getting peo-ple to do what he wanted
without them ever realizing his true intentions.
 Over by the campfire, Tyson let loose with his paintball gun. A blue projectile splattered against one of
the centaurs, hurling him backward into the lake. The centaur came up grinning, covered in swamp muck
and blue paint, and gave Tyson two thumbs up.
 "Annabeth," Chiron said, "perhaps you and Grover would go supervise Tyson and my cousins before
they, ah, teach each other too many bad habits?"
 Annabeth met his eyes. Some kind of understanding passed between them.
 "Sure, Chiron," Annabeth said. "Come on, goat boy."
 "But I don't like paintball."
 "Yes, you do." She hoisted Grover to his hooves and led him off toward the campfire.
 Chiron finished bandaging my leg. "Percy, I had a talk with Annabeth on the way here. A talk about the
prophecy."
 Uh-oh, I thought.
 "It wasn't her fault," I said. "I made her tell me."
 His eyes flickered with irritation. I was sure he was going to chew me out, but then his look turned to
weari-ness. "I suppose I could not expect to keep it secret forever."
 "So am I the one in the prophecy?"
 Chiron tucked his bandages back into his pouch. "I wish I knew, Percy. You're not yet sixteen. For now
we must simply train you as best we can, and leave the future to the Fates."
 The Fates. I hadn't thought about those old ladies in a long time, but as soon as Chiron mentioned them,
some-thing clicked.
 "That's what it meant," I said.
 Chiron frowned. "That's what what  meant?"
 "Last summer. The omen from the Fates, when I saw them snip somebody's life string. I thought it meant
I was going to die right away, but it's worse than that. It's got something to do with your prophecy. The
death they foretold—it's going to happen when I'm sixteen."
 Chiron's tail whisked nervously in the grass. "My boy, you can't be sure of that. We don't even know if
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the prophecy is about you."
 "But there isn't any other half-blood child of the Big Three!"
 "That we know of."
 "And Kronos is rising. He's going to destroy Mount Olympus!"
 "He will try," Chiron agreed. "And Western Civilization along with it, if we don't stop him. But we will
stop him. You will not be alone in that fight."
 I knew he was trying to make me feel better, but I remembered what Annabeth had told me. It would
come down to one hero. One decision that would save or destroy the West. And I felt sure the Fates
had been giving me some kind of warning about that. Something terrible was going to happen, either to
me or to somebody I was close to.
 "I'm just akid,  Chiron," I said miserably. "What good is one lousy hero against something like Kronos?"
 Chiron managed a smile. '"What good is one lousy hero'? Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain said something
like that to me once, just before he single-handedly changed the course of your Civil War."
 He pulled an arrow from his quiver and turned the razor-sharp tip so it glinted in the firelight. "Celestial
bronze, Percy. An immortal weapon. What would happen if you shot this at a human?"
 "Nothing," I said. "It would pass right through."
 "That's right," he said. "Humans don't exist on the same level as the immortals. They can't even be hurt
by our weapons. But you, Percy—you are part god, part human. You live in both worlds. You can be
harmed by both, and you can affect both. That's what makes heroes so special. You carry the hopes of
humanity into the realm of the eternal. Monsters never die. They are reborn from the chaos and
barbarism that is always bubbling underneath civilization, the very stuff that makes Kronos stronger. They
must be defeated again and again, kept at bay. Heroes embody that struggle. You fight the battles
humanity must win, every generation, in order to stay human. Do you understand?"
 "I ... I don't know."
 "You must try, Percy. Because whether or not you are the child of the prophecy, Kronos thinks you
might be. And after today, he will finally despair of turning you to his side. Thatis  the only reason he
hasn't killed you yet, you know. As soon as he's sure he can't use you, he will destroy you."
 "You talk like you know him."
 Chiron pursed his lips. "I do know him."
 I stared at him. I sometimes forgot just how old Chiron was. "Is that why Mr. D blamed you when the
tree was poi-soned? Why you said some people don't trust you?"
 "Indeed."
 "But, Chiron ... I mean, come on! Why would they think you'd ever betray the camp for Kronos?"
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 Chiron's eyes were deep brown, full of thousands of years of sadness. "Percy, remember your training.
Remember your study of mythology. What is my connec-tion to the titan lord?"
 I tried to think, but I'd always gotten my mythology mixed up. Even now, when it was so real, so
important to my own life, I had trouble keeping all the names and facts straight. I shook my head. "You,
uh, owe Kronos a favor or something? He spared your life?"
 "Percy," Chiron said, his voice impossibly soft. "The titan Kronos is my father."

Categories: The Sea of Monsters