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🍦— 013. fight! fight!
IT WAS PRETTY MUCH Percy's worst nightmare. And believe him, he had plenty of nightmares. They were marched down the tunnel flanked by dracaenae, with Kelli and the giant in back, just in case we tried to run for it. Nobody seemed to worry about them running forward. That was the direction they wanted us to go.
Up ahead Percy could see bronze doors. They were about ten feet tall, emblazoned with a pair of crossed swords. From behind them came a muffled roar, like from a crowd.
"Oh, yessssss," said the snake woman on my left. "You'll be very popular with our hossssst."
Percy'd never gotten to look at a dracaena up close before, and he wasn't real thrilled to have the opportunity. She would've had a beautiful face, except her tongue was forked and her eyes were yellow with black slits for pupils. She wore bronze armor that stopped at her waist. Below that, where her legs should've been, were two massive snake trunks, mottled bronze and green. She moved by a combination of slithering and walking, as if she were on living skis.
"Who's your host?" Percy asked.
She hissed, which might have been a laugh. "Oh, you'll sssssee. You'll get along famousssly. He'ssss your brother, after all."
"My what?"
Immediately he thought of Tyson, but that was impossible. What was she talking about? The giant pushed past us and opened the doors. He picked up Annabeth and Vivi by their shirts and said, "You stay here."
"Hey!" Annabeth protested, but the guy was twice her size and he'd already confiscated her knife, Vivi's dagger and Percy's sword.
Kelli laughed. She still had her claws at Rachel's neck. "Go on, Percy. Entertain us. We'll wait here with your friends to make sure you behave."
He looked at Rachel. "I'm sorry. I'll get you out of this."
She nodded as much as she could with a demon at her throat. "That would be nice."
The dracaenae prodded him toward the doorway at javelin-point, and Percy walked out onto the floor of an arena. He guess it wasn't the largest arena, but it seemed pretty spacious considering the whole place was underground.
The dirt floor was circular, just big enough that you could drive a car around the rim if you pulled it really tight. In the center of the arena, a fight was going on between a giant and a centaur. The centaur looked panicked. He was galloping around his enemy, using sword and shield, while the giant swung a javelin the size of a telephone pole and the crowd cheered.
