MΛЯK ӨF ΛƬΉΣПΛ
IN A RUSH THE SIX ARGO MEMBERS STUMBLED UP THE STAIRS.
When Lucia saw the monster that had surfaced, she gasped in complete shock. She had never seen anything like it.
"Oh, gross..." Lucia wrinkled her nose
Percy yelled, "What's going— Gah! Shrimpzilla!"
The thing was the length of their ship. In the moonlight, it looked like a cross between a giant shrimp and a cockroach, with a pink chitinous shell, a flat crayfish tail, and millipede-type legs undulating hypnotically as the monster scraped against the hull of the Argo II.
Frank ran to Hazel's side. She was clutching the rigging, dazed but she gestured that she was all right.
The monster rammed the ship again. The hull groaned. Annabeth, Piper, and Jason tumbled to starboard and almost rolled overboard.
Leo reached the helm. His hands flew across the controls. Over the intercom, Festus clacked and clicked,
Lucia didn't understand bronze dragon but she hoped he didn't say the ship was at risk of sinking...
The monster was in spitting distance, which meant that Lucia couldn't run to the ballistae without setting the Argo II on fire as well.
"How did it get so close?" Annabeth shouted, pulling herself up on one of the rail shields.
"I don't know!" Hedge snarled. He looked around for his bat, which had rolled across the quarterdeck.
"I'm stupid!" Leo scolded himself. "Stupid, stupid! I forgot the sonar!"
The ship tilted farther to starboard. Lucia yelped as she and Percy fell against the railing of the ship. She gripped his bicep to keep him from falling overboard. "Leo! If I fall into that cold water! I'm making you speak like a Dr. Seuss book for the rest of your damn life!"
"Sonar?" Hedge demanded. "Pan's pipes, Valdez! Maybe if you hadn't been staring into Hazel's eyes, holding hands for so long—"
"What?" Frank yelped.
"It wasn't like that!" Hazel protested.
"Save this soap opera for later!" Lucia cried. "Someone just kill that thing!"
"Jason, can you call some lightning?" Piper suggested,
Jason struggled to his feet. "I—" He only managed to shake his head.
Summoning the storm earlier had taken too much out of him. Lucia doubted the poor guy could pop a spark plug in the shape he was in.
"Percy!" Annabeth said. "Can you talk to that thing? Do you know what it is?"
The son of the sea god shook his head, clearly mystified. "Maybe it's just curious about the ship. Maybe—"
The monster's tendrils lashed across the deck so fast, Lucia didn't even have time to yell out a warning.
One slammed Percy in the chest and sent him crashing down the steps. Another wrapped around her legs and dragged her, screaming and cursing out profanities, toward the rail.
Dozens more tendrils curled around the masts, encircling the crossbows and ripping down the riggings.
"Nose-hair attack!" Hedge snatched up his bat and leaped into action; but his hits just bounced harmlessly off the tendrils.
Lucia hissed, she willed her body temperature to rise. Illuminating the dark sea with her presence. Steam fell off the creature and it cried in pain, its skin blistering the longer it held her.
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²𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐊 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐃𝐘✸ percy jackson
Fanfiction𝄞 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐊 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐃𝐘.(n.) behold the blood of Hyacinthus, which had poured out on the ground beside him and there stained the grass, was changed from blood; and in its place a flower, more beautiful than Tyrian dye, sprang up. ❝ Near time...
