ONE LAST TIME . . . heroes of olympus

77

FIRST IT WAS the stupid cow things — they were called katobleps, Kat was half right — and now it was giant turtles? Could they not get a break? Next thing you know, there'll be monster flamingos going after them. Which would be a shame. Kat loved flamingos. If you couldn't tell already.

Kat was kissing Jason, actually, when the ship lurched forward. She had fallen backward off of him and hit the ground. He'd caught himself on the bed just in time to not join her.

"Ow!" she groaned.

"You alright?" Jason was instantly on his feet, helping her stand.

"We were cockblocked, do you think I'm okay?" Kat patted his hand for helping her up as they started running out of his room.

"Stop using that word, Rina."

"No."

The ship rocked to port with a massive commotion, like telephone poles snapping in half. Kat caught herself on the wall just in time to avoid tripping again.

"The fuck is happening up there?" she muttered as she followed Jason, drawing Cortana on the way.

When they got up there, they were immediately greeted by Hazel and Frank on the ground. Jason jumped over them, so Kat followed, saying, "don't have too much fun down there!"

Piper was already on the quarterdeck, shooting food from her cornucopia and yelling, "Hey! HEY! Eat this, ya stupid turtle!"

Turtle?

Sure enough, it was a turtle. The size of an island, yes, but still a turtle. Its shell was like a landmass — hills of bone, shiny pearl valleys, kelp and moss forests, rivers of seawater trickling down the grooves of its carapace.

Its gold eyes were the size of wading pools, with dark sideways slits for pupils. Its skin glistened like wet army camouflage — brown flecked with green and yellow. Its red, toothless mouth could've swallowed the Athena Parthenos in one bite.

Yeah, Kat was so fucked. What the fuck.

Nearby, Frank fired arrows in its eyes as an attempt to drive it away. Key word being attempt, because that turtle was really gunning for something. Probably to kill them, because everything wanted to kill them.

Leo frantically worked the ship's controls. "Oars won't retract. Get it away! Get it away!"

Up in the rigging, Nico's face was slack with shock.

"Styx — it's huge!" he yelled. "Port! Go port!"

Hedge was the last one on deck. He compensated for that with enthusiasm. He bounded up the steps, waving his baseball bat, and without hesitation goat-galloped to the stern and leaped over the rail with a gleeful "Ha-HA!"

The boat shuddered. More oars snapped, and Leo yelled, "No, no, no! Dang slimy-shelled son of a mother!"

Kat watched as it snapped off half a dozen oars.

"Stop that!" Leo wailed.

Hedge clambered around the turtle's shell, whacking at it uselessly with his baseball bat and yelling, "Take that! And that!"

Jason flew from the stern and landed on the creature's head. He stabbed his golden sword straight between its eyes, but the blade slipped sideways, as if the turtle's skin were greased steel. Frank shot arrows at the monster's eyes with no success. The turtle's filmy inner eyelids blinked with uncanny precision, deflecting each shot. Piper shot cantaloupes into the water, yelling, "Fetch, ya stupid turtle!" But the turtle seemed fixated on eating the Argo II.

"Cortana, go for the mouth!" Kat ordered, and her sword flew toward the turtle. It opened its mouth — probably to try and eat her sword, which, gross — and Cortana flew in and presumably stabbed the inside of the mouth. The turtle opened its mouth and Cortana flew back to Kat.