“What is that?!” Carter cried in alarm.
The monster he was referring to was 400-yard-long dragon thing with hundreds of heads, fangs the size of Texas and four short legs with gnarled claws. It opened its mouth and sprayed poison at the approaching army. Fortunately, its range was not far, and all that was hit was a few monsters who instantly exploded into yellow dust.
“Ladon?!” Percy yelled in uncharacteristic fear and more characteristic disbelief.
“Who’s Ladon?” Carter asked.
“That!”
“Not what I mean!” Carter shouted, exasperated. “Background information!”
Percy took the time to slice through a few draconae who stupidly decided to come in range of his blade. Carter took note of how it only took him one swing for all three of them. “Dragon, guards the Tree of Immortality. I really don’t know much, just that he’s very, very, very difficult to defeat.”
Carter knew a little about dragons from reading, and from what he’d read, they were vicious and next to impossible to beat.
In other words, Carter knew exactly what needed to be done.
“Let’s get Jason, we’re heading in,” Carter instructed Percy, who nodded grimly and ran off, slicing to dust every monster in his path.
Carter watched him with jealousy and admiration. The monsters that Carter would have to duel for about a minute, Percy would slice through in a second without even thinking. Olympic fencers weren’t nearly as good as him.
The monsters just kept coming. It was like hydra heads: each time you chop down one, two more show up. Carter would be overwhelmed if Jason and Percy didn’t show up quickly.
Show up quickly they did. In the amount of time it would take Percy to slice through a hundred monsters (so, like, a minute), Carter spotted Jason flying in with Percy holding on to his feet, dangling over thousands of monsters hungry for demigod blood. Carter waved with the one hand that wasn’t swinging a sword, trying to catch their attention.
Hey landed next to him and started slicing. “So what needs killing other than these monsters?” Jason asked.
“My old buddy Ladon,” Percy replied bitterly. He pointed the dragon out.
“Wow,” Jason whistled. “How are we supposed to defeat that?”
“Never mind that,” Carter cut in. “How do we get there?”
“Leave that to me,” Percy answered, smirking.
“ALL THE MONSTERS WHO DON’T WANT TO BE VAPORIZED AND SENT TO TARTARUS, MAKE A PATH TO THE DRAGON!” he shouted. Immediately, the monsters moved away, leaving a clear path to the base of the Athena Promachos, which the dragon Ladon stood upon, vaporizing monsters and demigods alike.
The trio hurried down Panathenaic Way, destroying any monster that was stupid enough to stand in their way. The prophecy had begun, the first two lines reached, and Carter couldn’t help but wonder which two would destroy Porphyrion, who would die, what “painless pain” one of them would endure, and who would defeat Gaea.
Percy was way ahead of Jason and Carter when something – someone – came barreling past. It seemed as though Porphyrion was going to run straight into the mouth of Ladon. One less giant to kill, Carter thought.
But then Porphyrion took a sharp right and continued along Panathenaic Way, away from the raging battle.
Carter and Jason looked quizzically at each other, but another shriek from Ladon reminded them of their mission.
It looked like they’d missed a fair bit of action. Ladon had black blood pouring from the stub where his tail should have been. Meanwhile, Percy was standing on a giant mound of water, his sword dripping a thick black liquid. It was simple to guess what had happened.
Ladon recoiled and gave another shriek of pain. He whipped his head around wildly, trying to spot his attacker. His eyes glanced over Carter’s, and time froze.
Carter felt as though he was shivering, but not moving. He couldn’t move; his muscles didn’t work. All he could do was stand up. Paralyzed, he was. Not that he needed to move. The whole war was pointless. They were going to lose. Ladon was proof of that helplessness.
But somewhere, in the back of his sub consciousness, he thought, No. We can’t go down like this. We’ll fight, and we’ll win, or we’ll lose with pride and dignity. If I’m going down, I’m taking a couple hundred monsters and a giant down with me.
And that was the thought that woke him up.
“Carter! Carter, wake up!” A hand slapped him in the face. Carter bolted up to a sitting position, nearly hitting Jason’s forehead.
“Oh, good, you’re not dead,” Jason sighed in relief. “Percy’s practically murdered Ladon.”
Carter turned his head over to the dragon and almost didn’t recognize what he saw.
Ladon looked about as scary as a kitten. Three of his four legs had been chopped off, so the dragon could not move. Its poison barely reached five meters in distance. He had two black pits where his eyes should have been, along with various cuts on his stomach.
One more feeble lunge at Percy, and he thrust his sword into the dragon’s heart. He exploded into a cloud of dust and when the dust settled, a dragon skin vest was atop the large pile of dust.
“Nice accessory,” Jason noted as they ran up to Percy.
Percy picked it up and put it on. “Too bad dragon skin’s out.”
*******************************************************************************
Sorry for the long wait, we had a surprise trip to the cottage. BTW, if you thought that the line one of the two shall feel death’s sting is over, think again, because I still have a lot of people to murder. I actually don’t think I’ve murdered anyone yet. Well, except for “Theodore”.
