Sign of the Times

Thorn shoots thorns. Who would've guessed?

We ran as fast as we could. We ignored the teachers yelling at us to stay in the gym and tried to get to Percy before he gets himself killed. Unfortunately for us, Percy had already gotten himself halfway there.

"I'll get them down with my hat while you three take him from behind," Annabeth tells us and we nod. We stand in dead (PUN) silence as the girl in front of us disappears. We watch the footprints in the snow get closer and closer to Percy and the DiAngelos before they turn to a run and take them out. 

Thorn launches something out of a . . . tail? And we run in from behind screaming our little heads off. Thalia has Aegis, her shield, open and her battle cry is nothing like you have ever heard before. Even I was tempted to run away for a second. "FOR ZEUS!" she added just for the flare.

She stabbed at Thorn with her spear but he easily swatted it away. His hand then turned into a large orange paw that swatted at her. Before I could watch her get clawed into nothing, I yelled, "Hey, you weird furry!"

Thorn turned his attention towards me. Uh oh, I hadn't thought this far ahead. I hold up my sword deflecting a thorn that was heading straight towards me. 

"Daughter of Hades," he growls. "Forfeit now and none of your friends must die!"

"Son of a bitch, I'm good. My friends have pretty good survival tactics." I don't let my eyes trail but nod my head towards the other son of a bitch (the bitch being Poseidon). "Well, most of us."

"Then you shall be first!" Before Thorn could shoot another thorn at me, thick vines wrapped around him. You might have thought, yay! Take that Thorn! Well, he did take it and give it back four times harder. His body grew and grew until it was no longer human, but a lion.

"Oh, shit!" He launched thorns in every direction. I would've gotten skewered by one if it weren't for Thalia covering us with her shield.

"A manticore!" Annabeth screams. 

"A manticore? He has like 3000 attack power!" Nico yells back. I look over to see his eyes wide in amazement. 

"Who are you people?" Bianca cried.

Thorn turned towards Percy, Nico, and Bianca and launched thorns at them. Percy covered them with his shield, the thorns leaving large dents on the shield. 

"Yield!" Thorn roared. 

"Never!" Thalia roared back with the same power in her voice. Thalia ran towards thorn but came to a stop when a loud sound came from above us. A military-grade helicopter appeared, shining its bright lights right at Thalia, temporarily blinding her. 

Thorn saw Thalia's moment of disorientation and smacked her with his tail, sending her flying across the snow. Percy ran towards her and deflected a thorn with his sword, covering them both with his shield. 

I ran over to Nico and Bianca, pushing them to the snow and telling them to keep down. I watched as thorn shot thorns at Percy and Thalia, cackling maniacally. "You can't keep this up, half-bloods! You will not win this one!" 

I took a deep breath and forced the ground to split beneath his feet. For a second, Thorn was surprised, giving Percy and Thalia a second to get away. Unlucky for me, though, Thorn doesn't need his feet to attack.

A thorn came out of nowhere and pieced right into my stomach. The pain was nothing like I had ever felt before. I could feel the burning throughout my entire stomach, slowly, but not slow enough, spreading to much chest and breathing got hard. I didn't even realize I had fallen down until I saw Bianca kneeling over me. 

"Get down!" I tell her, sitting up. I look at the thorn in my stomach, blood soaking all around it. "You got to be shitting me."

"You don't have long left, Emelia Ford. Surrender now, join us and I will heal you!" Thorn was standing right in front of me, right in front of Bianca and Nico.