Crimson Rivers [1] - Percy jackson

Chapter 3. Another strike

‘Yeah. Mm-hmm,’ Coach muttered. ‘Play nice.’ And he went back to his magazine. The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dived aside as the fiery bronze
comet sailed past my shoulder. 'Corey!’ I screamed.

Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded
against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds. ‘Run!’ I told my teammates. ‘The other exit!’

They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob’s hand, that
door also slammed shut. ‘No one leaves unless you’re out!’ Joe Bob roared. ‘And you’re not out until we eat you!’

He launched his own fireball. My teammates scattered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.Percy  reached for Riptide, which he always kept in his pocket, but then I realized he was wearing gym shorts. He had no pockets. Riptide was tucked in his jeans inside his gym locker. And the locker room door was sealed. He was completely defenceless.

Another fireball came streaking towards Percy. Tyson pushed him out of the way, but the explosion still blew him head over heels. Hefound myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, his tie-dyed T-shirt peppered with sizzling holes. Just across the centre line, two hungry giants were glaring down at him. ‘Flesh!’ they bellowed. ‘Hero flesh for lunch!’ They both took aim.

‘Percy needs help!’ Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of him  just as they
threw their balls.

‘Tyson!’ I screamed, but it was too late.
Both balls slammed into him … but no … he’d caught them. Somehow Tyson,
who was so clumsy he knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught two fiery metal balls speeding towards
him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back towards their surprised owners, who screamed, ‘BAAAAAD!’ as the bronze spheres exploded against their chests.

The giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame – a sure sign they were
monsters, all right. Monsters don’t die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust,
which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight. ‘My brothers!’ Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tattoo rippled. ‘You will pay for their destruction!’

‘Tyson!’ I said. ‘Look out!’

Another comet hurtled towards us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley’s head and landed in the stands with a huge KA-BOOM! Kids were running around screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Others were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.

Coach Nunley still wasn’t seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine. Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The headmaster, the police, somebody would come help us.
‘Victory will be ours!’ roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. ‘We will feast on your
bones!’

I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously, but
before I could, he hefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead. I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn’t deflect all those balls at once. His hands
had to be seriously burned from blocking the first volley.

Percy ran towards the locker room.
‘Move!’ he told our teammates. ‘Away from the door.’

Explosions behind him. Tyson had batted two of the balls back towards their owners and blasted them to ashes.
That left two giants still standing.
A third ball hurtled straight at Percy.
Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys’ locker rooms was enough to
cause an explosion, so I wasn’t surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a
huge WHOOOOOOOM!

The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supports and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym.I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the last giant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tyson was turning to face him. ‘No!’ I yelled.

The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. I didn’t see how Tyson could still
be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet.
Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.

‘Well!’ Joe Bob gloated. ‘I’m the last one standing! I’ll have enough meat to
bring Babycakes a doggy bag!’

He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson. ‘Stop!’ Percy yelled. ‘It’s us you want!’

The giant grinned. ‘You wish to die first, young hero?’

He had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere. Then he spotted his jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant’s feet. If he could only get there … he knew it was hopeless, but he charged. The giant laughed. ‘My lunch approaches.’

He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to see Percy die. Suddenly, the giant’s body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Right where his belly button should’ve been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn – no, not a horn – the glowing tip of a blade. The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind.
He muttered, ‘Ow,’ and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to make Babycakes pretty upset.

Standing in the smoke was my friend Annabeth. Her face was grimy and
scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm- grey eyes, like she’d just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts. Matt Sloan, who’d been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally
came to his senses. He blinked at Annabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture. ‘That’s the girl … That’s the girl –’

Annabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. ‘And you’, she told
him, ‘lay off my friends.’

The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. I heard
sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see the headmaster, Mr Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him. ‘Annabeth…’ I stammered. ‘How did you … how long have you…’

‘Pretty much all morning.’ She sheathed her bronze knife. ‘I’ve been trying to
find a good time to talk to you guyd, but you were never alone.’

‘The shadow I saw this morning – that was –’ My face felt hot. ‘Oh my gods,
you were looking in my bedroom window?'

‘There’s no time to explain!’ she snapped, ‘I just didn’t want to –’

‘There!’ a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came
pouring in.

‘Meet me outside,’ Annabeth told me and Percy. ‘And him.’ She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn’t quite understand. ‘You’d better bring him.’

‘What?’

‘No time!’she said. ‘Hurry!’

She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom,
and instantly vanished. That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in with half the faculty and a couple of police
officers.

‘Percy Jackson? Syrus Prince?’ Mr Bonsai said. ‘What … how…’

Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder
blocks. ‘Head hurts.’

Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror.
‘Percy and Syrus did it, Mr Bonsai! They set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!’

Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck – he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. ‘Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm.’

The other adults turned towards us. I knew they would never believe us,
even if we could tell them the truth. Percy grabbed Riptide out of his ruined jeans, told Tyson, ‘Come on!’ and we jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.