Cleaning Up Percy Jackson's Multitude of Messes

IX ~ Riggs

After a few minutes of Chrys and I discreetly whispering on how to approach this new situation, and Diago whisper-yelling something I didn't care about, I was convinced to wait for the monsters to show their faces before attacking in an ill advised blood craze. Now, I don't usually let people talk me into things, but I figured it was the least I could do after partially contributing to the car wreck. (Yes, I do admit I had some involvement in the cause of the event.)

In any event, it took little less than half an hour of me strolling along doing my nails, Chrys forcing casualness, and Diago blowing air through his nose and making faces at his shoes, before a confrontation was made.

A twig snapped to the left of us, and when we turned to the noise, we were confronted with the sight of an elegant, dark haired lady that seemed to ooze evil, and two horse chickens. I'm not kidding; front half redish brown horse, back half frilly rooster. The whole thing made me rethink my life choices a little bit.

"I am Lamia!", the dark lady announced dramatically. "And these are the Hippalectryon. We have come to pluck your insignificant souls from your bodies, blah, blah, blah...." I stopped listening to her crazy rant after about three seconds, but I really hope someone was paying attention, because that might've been important.

When her overly dramatic speech finally ended, I leaned over to Chrys and mumbled, "Just let me talk to her, I think I can solve this." Chrys, of course, made unhappy noises and tried to hold me back, but I simply tugged my arm away and strode over to Lamia, sinking into a bow to show I meant no harm.

"Look, Lamia, I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot," I offered my hand, hoping she wouldn't do something annoying, like bite it off. "My name is Rigel, and I come from Chicago."

Lamia took my hand and pumped it vigorously, flashing a crazy smile, "I am Lamia, mistress of Zeus and devourer of the flesh of children."

"Haha, eww," I laugh, pretending I care.

"This is so nice of you," she says, releasing my hand, "so few people bother with manners before I kill them anymore."

"Oh, you're quite welcome." I wave her praises off, "In fact, I was wondering if you could help us out with something. It would be great if you could just hold off on killing us for a couple of hours, we'd like to get our personal affairs and all that ready for death, and I have a letter I need to mail."

"Well," she frowns, "I don't usually do such things, but you're so polite." She begins to waiver, thinking. "And I do have to make a quick run to the grocery store. Yes," Lamia nods, " I suppose I can give you a few hours to--"

"BAR FIGHT!" I cut her off with a firm left hook to the jaw and she goes down. The horse chickens, however, did not look too pleased with my actions, and begin to advance. I felt pretty good about the odds of the fight, but Chrys and Diago come charging to my aid before I can throw another spectacular blow.

"Why did you do that?!" he yells. "She was about to let us go!"

"Because, man," I charge the Hippalectryon on the left, "she never saw that punch coming." The Hippalectryon rears back, flaring out a pair of giant chicken wings, trying to make me scared and uncertain. Well, jokes on it, because I'm way too stupid to feel fear in the face of death. I dart to the left, dodging its wing and aiming a two footed kick at a scrawny chicken leg. Something cracks loudly, and the Hippalectryon shrieks and beats its wings furiously, causing me to spring back, right into the side of its friend. Luckily, this one doesn't seem to have much fight left in it; it's limping, bleeding green blood from at least ten stab wounds. I adjust quickly, getting the monster into a headlock and holding it more or less still as Diago finished it off and Chrys tended to the one squirming on the ground in pain, but still trying to drag itself close enough to bite me.

The fight is over in a matter of minutes, leaving me covered in some strange, gritty, monster dust that smelled like smoke and wet dog. Oh well.

"Well," Chrys sighs, "that was tedious and more or less pointless. Hey", she frowns, "where's Lamia?" Sure enough, Lamia in not where I left her, and our scuffle with the horse-chickens had erased any tracks she may have left.

"Yeah, that'll probably come back to bite us." I state.

Diago looks like he wants to say something about how she almost let us go without a fight, but thankfully keeps his mouth shut. I don't need that kind of negativity.

Without speaking a word between us, we begin walking in the same direction we had been before being so rudely interrupted. We don't see any signs of Lamia, subtle or otherwise. I just hoped she didn't think Diago was young enough to eat, because I wasn't sure he would do too well in a one on one fight.

After a half hour of trudging through the woods, we stumble into the parking lot of a large strip mall which seems to be doing fairly good business, despite being in the middle of nowhere. My new friends stumble into the store that looks most likely to be selling bottled water without slowing down. When they come back out a few minutes later, looking refreshed and holding a bottle that I'm guessing is for me, I'm leaning on a worn green Saturn on the outskirts of the parking lot.

"Hey guys. Found us a ride."

Sorry for the late installment! Written by the great dogsarepeopletoo Any critiques to give, please do so. They really do help. Please vote and comment. ^.- You guys are great!

-WT44