You're Not Getting Away From Me

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: Sweet Dreams

Annabeth's POV

I didn't even turn around when the scream broke through the silent restaurant.

"What is it this time?" I asked Percy wearily.

"Well," he replied, staring out the glass door behind me, "I wouldn't look if I were you." I could tell from just his eyes that it wasn't something anyone would want to see.

So of course I turned around and looked.

A weird mixture of a monster was stomping through the streets right towards us. The mortals that hadn't had the chance to run yet were clogging the streets. It's like they were trying to get away but there was too much chaos. It didn't seem like anyone had been hurt so far, but that probably wasn't going to last for long. I have no idea what the Mist could possibly morph that monster into. In fact, the word monster didn't really cover it.

The body was about the size of an Olympic swimming pool (not, like, Mount Olympus Olympic, but, like, games that occur every four years  Olympic). It was about as wet as one, too. The skin that looked like it had frostbite oozed a clear liquid all over. The thing had a tail as long as the Empire State Building, covered it bizarre bristles that looked razor-sharp. The talons on it's claws curved like the M on the McDonalds sign. The head... well, it was too gruesome to look at. I averted my eyes back to Percy.

"Let's go," Percy muttered, standing up and pulling Riptide out of his pocket. The restaurant was a mess. We had to go before anything happened to all the mortals.

"Yeah," I responded, also rising and unsheathing my dagger. We sprinted out the door into the quickly dispersing crowd. That's good. But not so good that the monster is huge.

"Uh... so I guess we'll just, like, slash it 'till it dies then?" Percy okayed with me.

"Until we come up with something better, because that is the lamest plan I've ever heard."

"Hey, it usually works!" He protested.

"Whatever, lets just disintegrate this thing," I said, giving him quick kiss. We both charged.

It was not that easy. I am an idiot for thinking it would be. The creature had a hide like nothing I've ever seen before. No matter how hard he tried, Percy couldn't get Riptide to penetrate it. I left him on the ground and tried to scale the monster. Note "tried". It was too slimy. Gross. I made it to about the knee and slid back down, really fast. Fortunately, something broke my fall. Unfortunately, that something was Percy.

"Humph," he grunted as I crashed into him and we both hit the ground.

"Sorry," I said, embarrassed, grabbing his hand to pull him up.

"S'alright. But what do we do?" he asked, narrowly missing a swipe from the fast food logo talon.

"We need to find a chink in the armor, a soft spot. That'll be the only way to do any damage." My brain was moving abnormally sluggishly. What was going on? I should have a fool proof plan by now. It's almost like something is slowing down my thoughts.

"Ugh, I've had enough 'chinks in the armor' for a life time," Percy muttered bitterly. Oh. His Achilles Heel. "Where would be a good spot..." He must be experiencing the same thing as me. I could see it in his eyes that he was struggling to think straight. "The eyes! We need to go for the eyes!" he shouted suddenly. Yeah, that's good. Why did it take so long to come up with that? Why wasn't I able to come up with it?

"Okay, the only way to get up would be to go up the tail, everything else is too slick," I observed out loud.

"No way, have you seen that tail?" Percy demanded while we both ducked as the said tail soared over our heads at eighty miles an hour. "It's sharper than my fourth grade teacher's hearing. She was, like, part bat or something too!"