~ { Shadow and Beauty } ~

Golden Boy

{Kiara}

Kiara was sitting at her desk when the alarm bell sounded.

   She jumped at the sudden sound, then quickly left her room, summoning her sword as she made her way through the hallway.

   At the base of the stairs, she encountered the weirdest thing. A dozen human-like dolphins. The daughter of Pluto was too shocked to react. She just stared at the dolphin-men, and they stared back.

   By the time she had decided to swing her sword at them, the dolphin-men had already lunged to grab her.

In a matter of minutes, she was getting dragged up to the deck by a bunch of dolphins. She kicked and trashed, but it was no use. The dolphin-men had taken her sword, so she wasn't able to cut them to pieces, and even if she could somehow take it back, her hands were tied. Literally. As if that wasn't enough, as far as she could sense, there were no dead below them. So, no way to raise a skeleton army, either.

   Up on deck, Annabeth and Percy stood back-to-back, as they'd done many times before, their weapons drawn. Percy looked like he was trying to summon the waves, but nothing happened. He raised Riptide, ready to fight, but they were hopelessly outnumbered. Several dozen warriors lowered their spears and made a ring around them, wisely keeping out of striking distance of Percy's sword.

   The dolphin-men opened their snouts and made whistling, popping noises. Kiara had never considered just how vicious dolphin teeth looked.

   At least the warriors didn't seem interested in killing them immediately. They kept Percy and Annabeth contained while more of their comrades flooded belowdecks and secured the hull. Kiara could hear them breaking down the cabin doors, scuffling with her friends. Even if the other demigods hadn't been fast asleep, they wouldn't have stood a chance against so many. She hoped Hazel and Piper were okay.

   Leo was dragged across the deck, half-conscious and groaning, and dumped on a pile of ropes. Below, the sounds of fighting tapered off. Either the others had been subdued or... or they were dead. Kiara didn't want to think about the latter..

   On one side of the ring of spears, the dolphin warriors parted to let someone through. He appeared to be fully human, but from the way the dolphins fell back before him, he was clearly the leader. He was dressed in Greek combat armor—sandals, kilt, and greaves, a breastplate decorated with elaborate sea monster designs—and everything he wore was gold. Even his sword, a Greek blade like Riptide, was gold instead of bronze.

   What really made Kiara nervous was the guy's helmet. His visor was a full face mask fashioned like a gorgon's head—curved tusks, horrible features pinched into a snarl, and golden snake hair curling around the face.

   Annabeth turned so she was shoulder to shoulder with Percy.

   "Who are you?" Percy demanded. "What do you want?"

   The golden warrior chuckled. With a flick of his blade, faster than Kiara could follow, he smacked Riptide out of Percy's hand and sent it flying into the sea. Kiara saw Percy catch his breath. She guessed no one had ever disarmed the son of Poseidon that easily.

   "Hello, brother." The golden warrior's voice was rich and velvety, with an exotic accent—Middle Eastern, maybe. "Always happy to rob a fellow son of Poseidon. I am Chrysaor, the Golden Sword. As for what I want..." He turned his metal mask toward Annabeth. "Well, that's easy. I want everything you have."

   Chrysaor walked back and forth, inspecting them like prized cattle. A dozen of his dolphin-man warriors stayed in a ring around them, spears leveled at Percy's chest, while dozens more ransacked the ship, banging and crashing around belowdecks. One carried a box of ambrosia up the stairs. They were running out of ambrosia really fast. Another carried an armful of ballista bolts and a crate of Greek fire.