𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚘𝚠𝚗, 𝚔𝚒𝚍 - percy jackson x oc

015

XV - AMAZING GRACE

VALERIA SAW CHIRON among the crowd, but his relatives were almost nothing like him. There were centaurs with black Arabian stallion bodies, others with gold palomino coats, others with orange- and-white spots like paint horses.

Some wore brightly colored T-shirts with Day-Glo letters that said PARTY PONIES: SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER. Some were armed with bows, some with baseball bats, some with paintball guns. One had his face painted and was waving a large orange Styrofoam hand making a big Number 1.

Another was bare-chested and painted entirely green. A third had googly-eye glasses with the eyeballs bouncing around on Slinky coils, and one of those baseball caps with soda-can-and-straw attachments on either side.

They exploded onto the deck with such ferocity and color that for a moment even Luke was stunned.

As Luke was raising his sword to rally his troops, a centaur shot a custom-made arrow with a leather boxing glove on the end. It smacked Luke in the face and sent him crashing into the swimming pool.

Valeria wanted arrows like that.

Luke's warriors scattered. Facing the hooves of a rearing stallion was scary enough, but when it was a centaur, armed with a bow and whooping it up in a soda-drinking hat, even the bravest warrior would retreat.

"Come get some!" yelled one of the party ponies.

They let loose with their paintball guns. A wave of blue and yellow exploded against Luke's warriors, blinding them and splattering them from head to toe. They tried to run, only to slip and fall.

Chiron galloped toward Valeria and Grover, neatly plucked them off the deck, and deposited them on his back.

Percy tried to get up, but his wounded leg still felt like it was on fire.

Luke was crawling out of the pool. "Attack, you fools," he ordered his troops.

Somewhere down below deck, a large alarm bell thrummed.

They knew any second they would be swamped by Luke's reinforcements. Already, his warriors were getting over their surprise, coming at the centaurs with swords and spears drawn.

Tyson slapped half a dozen of them aside, knocking them over the guardrail into Miami Bay.

But more warriors were coming up the stairs.

"Withdraw, brethren!" Chiron said.

"You won't get away with this, horse man!" Luke shouted. Valeria thought that calling Chiron, someone who had practically raised Luke, horse man was pretty low.

Luke raised his sword, but got smacked in the face with another boxing glove arrow, and sat down hard in a deck chair.

A palomino centaur hoisted Percy onto his back. "Dude, get your big friend!"

"Tyson!" Percy yelled. "Come on!"

Tyson dropped the two warriors he was about to tie into a knot and jogged after them. He jumped on the centaur's back.

"Dude!" the centaur groaned, almost buckling under Tyson's weight. "Do the words 'low-carb diet' mean anything to you?"

Luke's warriors were organizing themselves into a phalanx. But by the time they were ready to advance, the centaurs had galloped to the edge of the deck and fearlessly jumped the guardrail, as if it were a steeplechase and not ten stories above the ground.