𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞 (Annabeth X Malereader)

[15] A boxing glove arrow?

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. 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 coloured T-shirts with Day-Glo letters that said PARTYPONIES: 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 colour that for a moment even Luke was stunned. 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.

"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. Y/N rushed over to Percy, helping him up.

Luke was crawling out of the pool. "Attack, you fools!'" he ordered his troops. Somewhere down below deck, a large alarm bell thrummed.

"We have to retreat!" Y/N said. "There's too many reinforcements." Already, monsters and 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 yelled.

"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 Percy and Y/N onto his back, before turning to another darker centaur.

"Dude! Get their big friend!" The darker centaur galloped over to Tyson, helping him into his back.

"Dude!" the centaur groaned, almost buckling under Tyson's weight. "Do the words 'low-carb diet' mean anything to you?" Luke's warriors were organizing themselves into a phalanx. But by the time they were ready to advance, the centaurs 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. They plummeted toward the docks, but the centaurs hit the asphalt with hardly a jolt and galloped off, whooping and yelling taunts at the Princess Andromeda as they raced into the streets of downtown Miami.

Streets and buildings began to blur as the centaurs picked up speed, as if space were compacting, as if each centaur step took them miles and miles. In no time, they had left the city behind. They raced through marshy fields of high grass and ponds and stunted trees. Finally, they found themselves in a trailer park at the edge of a lake. The trailers were all horse trailers, tricked out with televisions and mini-refrigerators and mosquito netting.

"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! Headslam!" The two centaurs charged at each other full-force and knocked heads, then went staggering off in different directions with crazy grins on their faces.