Brielle
"Do you even know what you're doing?"
"He doesn't know what he's doing," Angelica whispers.
"Shut up---once I figure out who you people belong to I'm returning you, but for now," the man fiddles with an extensive iPad that's connected to several mechanical devices, "Now, I detected presence of the monster near here. So shh."
"Do you know how to slay a monster?" Angelica asks, hands on her hips
"Aren't you twelve?" hand on hip as well. He's probably older than my dad. He has thick, caramel colored curls that are mostly slicked out of his face successfully, and sun kissed, rich tan skin. His eyes are a copper green with very light brown fading over them. He's wearing a Goonies t-shirt and faded, torn jeans, as well as Vans. He looks like the sort of dude they would bring in to talk to us about cyber security at school.
"I'm pretty sure I'm in charge of this operation," Angelica says, "My mother, leader of the Hunt, is going to agree with that."
"I don't care. You're really small and I'm turning you in at the earliest available opportunity," he hisses. He introduced himself as Teddy. I'm assuming that's his name.
Meanwhile, behind us, this twitchy dude, also holding a bunch of ghost-busters esq equipment, is fiddling with it, pushing up his glasses, twitching, and talking, he's saying; "So you're in in an airport and these people---they walk the slowest they have in their whole lives. I don't –I don't know maybe they come there just because they've never tried to move that slowly so they think 'you know what? I'm in an airport, so I'm gonna give it a try'. And then, all the ticketing, and agent, personnel, people, they are gonna speak in the lowest possible decibel known to man meanwhile announcements no one has ever listened to ever are playing at the loudest possible decibel known to man. Meanwhile the entire place smells like an actual armpit and five people run into you every hour just at random. If you drop something at least ten people stare at you while you slowly try to pick it up—"
"Dude, shut up about the airports," Teddy says, lifting his head from looking at his iPad.
"She's never been to one," he points at me. His name is Pierce, apparently.
"Yes, you walked up and said, 'have you ever been to an airport' and she said 'no' and then you proceeded to empty the garbage can that is your brain and every single irrational thought that's every crossed the barren apocalyptic wasteland that is your cerebellum. Shut up. Nobody wants to hear that. Least of all me who has already heard all of it," Teddy says, glaring at his boyfriend.
"She said she'd never been to an airport," still twitching and muttering.
"How are you going to slay this monster once you find it?" Angelica asks him.
"I don't know. Since I'm not a tiny twelve year old girl, that's something I'm gonna worry about. It is not something you are gonna worry about," he says, glaring up at us. He's got a blue glass dagger on his waist. We both have bows and arrows as well as swords.
"Huh," Angelica says, not at all impressed.
"We're going to have to save him, aren't we?" I ask her.
"Definitely," she says.
"So how does your machinery work?" I ask.
"It detects unusual heat signatures, and this prototype I'm working on also includes irregular movement patterns. It allows me to pinpoint monsters even when they're invisible," he says, not looking up.
"Why do you think visibility would matter?" Pierce asks, coming to stand with me and Angelica.
"Because some of them turn invisible, duh," he says, his back still to the dark alley.
"So how sensitive is this equipment?" Angelica asks.
"Incredibly. Shh."
"So, would it tell you if the monster is close to you?" I ask.
"Yes, that's the whole point."
"How close?" Angelica asks.
"Would it start dinging or---?" Pierce asks.
"No, that would alert the monster now can you possibly---------it's standing behind me isn't it?" he asks, so tiredly.
"Yeah," Angelica says.
"Honestly, why does Aster let you out of the house?" Pierce asks.
Teddy dives out of the way while Angelica and I both draw our bows. We shoot arrows into the creature as it rises up out of the dark alley. It's larger than a bus, with huge paws like a lion. It has three heads, that of an eagle, a bear, and a lion.
"Get down," Teddy darts in front of it as it lowers a massive paw to sweep Angelica and I off our feet. We roll out of the way while he stabs its paw with his dagger. Peter runs back to their truck to retrieve a shot gun.
Angelica regains her footing first, shooting an arrow that strikes the monster's eagle eye.
"It's a chimera," Angelica warns.
"A chimera is a rare mutation in which an individual carries two distinct sets of DNA—"
"Yes, thank you, Encyclopedia Britannica, it also means a very ancient, very evil monster!" Teddy growls, ducking as I shoot an arrow over his head. Mine goes much wider than Angelica's nestling in its side.
Pierce fires the shot gun and the creature roars in anger, melting back into the shadows. All four of us give chase, which says something about all of us I think. Not necessarily something good. But something.
"A tunnel?" Pierce stares at the dark, disrupted pavement that gives way to dirt.
"Are you narrating this now?" Teddy asks him, tersely.
"Yeah, they do that, tunnel to use Underworld magic to travel faster, come on," Angelica says, hopping in.
"No—you kids are going home—" Teddy falls down trying to climb in after us. None of us help him. That also says something about us, I think.
"Look, they can move incredibly quickly. If we don't give chase now we could lose it, I don't know why you think you're here but my mom sent me out to find this thing," Angelica says, boldly.
"Yeah, we can handle this, you can stay or come," I say, following her.
"Did---did we just get dumped by the twelve year olds?"
"WE are responsible for the twelve year olds, Pierce."
"You said I'm not allowed to be responsible for me."
"And I was right. Now come on, we need to stop them from dying."
"Did you just fall down again while you said that?"
"Shut up. There was a rock there."
"Uh, if I weren't afraid it'd double back and eat them I'd say we lose 'em," Angelica says.
"They're trying to be nice, we should protect them," I agree, "Do you think your mom will catch up with us?"
"I assume so—she's the best tracker there is. She can't be far behind."
YOU ARE READING
Olympus Drive Book 5: Situation Normal
Adventure"Things" are breaking out of the Underworld, Death is missing, a wild boar is on the loose, and there's a murder trial going on. It's situation normal in Winfell as heroes and demi-gods assemble for a boar hunt. Chronologically after all of the Olym...
