𝐖𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐂! percy jackson

xix. Can The Son Of Neptune Drown?

━━ chapter nineteen
can the son of neptune drown?

✿✼:*ﾟ:༅。.。༅:*·ﾟﾟ·⭑

    ━━He was weightless.

    That's what it felt like. Percy's vision burred. Claws grabbed his arms and lifted him into the air. Below, train wheels squealed and metal crashed. Glass shattered. Passengers screamed. When his eyesight cleared, he saw the beast that carried him━it had the body of a panther; sleek, black and feline, with the wings and head of an eagle. Its eyes glowed blood-red.

    Percy squirmed. The monster's front talons were wrapped around his arms like steel bands. He couldn't free himself or reach for his sword, and he rose higher, and higher in the cold wind━he had no idea where this monster was taking him. Beside him, he saw that Fiona was in a similar predicament. She squirmed and fought, kicking her legs and trying to free herself, but was without luck.

    He yelled━mostly out of frustration. Then, something whistled by his ear. Two arrows sprouted from the monsters necks, and the creatures shrieked and let go. Percy was probably being very stupid, but he reached out towards Fiona and tried to soften the crash for her━yeah, really stupid. But he managed to get his arms around her waist, tugged her to his chest, and let him get the hits of the tree branches they crashed through. Slamming into a snowbank, he groaned. Fiona murmured something in pain on top of him, before rolling off and onto the snow beside him. Together, they looked up at the massive pine tree they had just shredded.

    "You okay?" Percy managed hoarsely, glancing at the girl beside him. She looked a little scratched and bloody, with some pine needles in her hair, but apart from that, okay.

    "You idiot," she replied, croaking. "You absolute━you could've died."

    You're welcome, he thought to himself. Percy managed to stand. Nothing seemed broken, and so he helped Fiona up, who glared. He scoffed, "Well, sorry for saving your life."

    "I was perfectly fine by myself!" she snapped back. "And you could have died doing that━you and your stupid hero's complex━"

     Frank stood to their left, shooting down the creatures as fast as he could. Hazel was at his back, swinging her sword at any monster that came close, but there were too many swarming around them━a dozen, at the very least.

    Percy drew Riptide, and Fiona held up her pugio. He sliced the wing off one monster and it went spiralling into a tree, and Fiona with a quick breath had turned into a blur and was back in seconds with a few of the monsters in dust at her feet amongst bursts of black flames. It tired her out, but she was ready to do it again, looking angry, scratched, pine-needled, but also breathtakingly beautiful.

    (Focus, Jackson, he told himself).

   "What are these things?" he yelled.

    "Gryphons!" replied Fiona━flash!━she stabbed one in the underbelly and it burst into ghostly fire. "We have to get them away from the train!"

    Percy saw what she meant. The train cars had fallen over, and their roofs shattered. Tourists were stumbling around in shock. He didn't see anyone who was seriously injured, but that didn't mean someone will be, because the gryphons were swooping towards anything that moved. The only thing keeping them away from the mortals was a glowing grey warrior in camouflage━Frank's pet spartus.

    He glanced over, and noticed Frank's spear was gone. "Used your last charge?"

    "Yeah," Frank shot another gryphon out of the sky. "I had to help the mortals. The spear just dissolved."