NEVER BE THE SAME . . . percy jackson

fifty three: the gryphons.

BROOKLYN WENT WEIGHTLESS.

Then she slammed against the side of the train, her vision turning blurry. Train wheels squealed and metal crashed. Glass shattered. Passengers screamed.

Brooklyn's eyesight cleared, so she scrambled out of the train by the now open roof, carefully treading the glass. Hazel and Frank followed behind her, their weapons drawn, but not Percy.

"Where is he?" Brooklyn yelled over the chaos.

Hazel looked around before her mouth dropped. "Look!"

Brooklyn looked up to see Percy in the air, yelling because he hated being in the air. The monster that held him had the body of a panther — sleek, black, and feline — with the wings and head of an eagle.

She swore under her breath, transforming her ring into her paintball gun and screaming, "Get the fuck off of him!"

The paintball hit the monster with a SPLAT! that she could hear even from here. The creature shrieked and let go.

Percy fell, crashing through tree branches until he slammed into a snowbank.

"Whoops," Brooklyn said as she guarded him, chaotically shooting paintballs at the monsters. Frank stood to her left, shooting down the creatures as fast as he could. Hazel was at her back, swinging her sword at any monster that came close, but there were too many swarming around them — at least a dozen.

Behind Brooklyn, Percy drew Riptide. He sliced the wing off one monster that was coming for her and sent it spiraling into a tree, then sliced through another that burst into dust. But the defeated ones began to re-form immediately.

"What are these things?" he yelled.

"Gryphons!" Hazel said. "We have to get them away from the train!"

In the chaos, the train cars had fallen over, and the roofs had shattered. Tourists were stumbling around in shock. Brooklyn didn't see anybody seriously injured, but the gryphons were swooping toward anything that moved. The only thing keeping them away from the mortals was a glowing gray warrior in camouflage — Frank's pet spartus.

She glanced over and noticed Frank's spear was gone.

"Used your last charge?" Percy asked.

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

Brooklyn hummed. Part of her was relieved. She didn't like the skeleton warrior. Part of her was disappointed, because that was one less weapon they had at their disposal. But she didn't fault Frank. He had done the right thing.

"Let's move the fight!" Percy said. "Away from the tracks!" They stumbled through the snow, smacking and slicing gryphons that re-formed from dust every time they were killed.

Brooklyn had had no experience with gryphons. She'd always imagined them as huge noble animals, like lions with wings, but these things reminded her more of vicious pack hunters — flying hyenas.

About fifty yards from the tracks, the trees gave way to an open marsh. The ground was so spongy and icy, Brooklyn nearly fell multiple times. Frank was running out of arrows. Hazel was breathing hard. Percy's sword swings were getting slower. Brooklyn realized they were alive only because the gryphons weren't trying to kill them. The gryphons wanted to pick them up and carry them off somewhere.

Then she tripped over something in the tall grass — a circle of scrap metal about the size of a tractor tire. It was a massive bird's nest — a gryphon's nest — the bottom littered with old pieces of jewelry, an Imperial gold dagger, a dented centurion's badge, and two pumpkin-sized eggs that looked like real gold.