Too Many Memories

Tyson Plays With A Head

Tyson Plays With A Head

"No, actually. The only thing that happened was a Sphinx made me play ANSWER THAT RIDDLE and turned to stone." I told Percy. "Not enough to kick off the party yet."

"Good."

Gaea snarled and thrust her hands into the sky, and vanished. The ground shook as if dozens of giants were trampling across it, but that couldn't be possible. Everyone looked around to try to find the source of the sound. I saw it first and my eyes widened.

Gaea's entire army was thundering towards us. Hundreds of monsters, making the monster to demigod ratio lean to their side. There seemed to be twenty monsters for every one demigod.

They were coming from every side. We were surrounded. If we managed to kill Clytius, and that was a big if, I wasn't sure we could handle all of the monsters.

The monsters reached us and we spread out as the fight began. There were all kinds of monsters--telekhines, empousa, dracaenae, hellhounds, cyclopes, Earthborn--even the other two Gorgons and Cerberus' evil twin. I didn't even know there was another three-headed dog.

I found myself facing Clytius alone. I saw Percy across the junkyard, trying to make his way over to me. He wouldn't be fast enough. I turned back to the giant and found his hand swiping at me. I ducked and winced at the action, doing my best not to collapse from Gaea's curse.

I stood back up and found that Thalia and Beckendorf were at my sides, to help me kill the bane of Hecate. I held up my dagger, but it felt wrong in my hand. Once again, I cursed Gaea for cursing me.

With Thalia and Beckendorf's help, I was able to occupy the giant. I was slow and sloppy, because of the curse. I winced at every movement, barely moved my arm from around my stomach, and stumbled along the ground.

Finally, I managed to bury my dagger in his leg, and Beckendorf pulled out a hammer. Thalia struck the hammer with lightning and Beckendorf used it to hit my dagger, propelling it deeper into Clytius' leg. He howled in pain, but slowly started to disintegrate. A pile of dust was left, with my knife sticking up out of it.

I picked up my dagger and ran in to join the fight, doing my best to ignore the pain that had continuously attacked me. I charged a telekhine and Tammy glued herself to my side.

I stabbed and slashed and hacked and swung and parried and blocked and ducked and rolled. I fought my way through the crowd of monsters and demigods and centaurs. I encountered many more old friends, such as the Chimera and Geryon.

Tammy helped me each time and hauled me back to my feet each time I collapsed. Percy tried to maneuver his way through the mass of sharp weapons to get to me, but a monster would always get in his way or a camper would need help. As a result, I spent the majority of the fight wincing and gaining many cuts and bruises from being too slow.

I saw dozens of monsters frozen and cracking, as if they had been turned to stone. Then I discovered the reason. Tyson had somehow found Medusa's head and was running around with it, actually turning the enemy to stone. Any monster that was smart enough to not look Medusa's head in the eyes, he smacked on the head, knocking them unconscious and left for the demigods to deal with. I laughed at the sight, and cheered him on.

"Bad doggie, you go bye bye!" Tyson stated as he froze a hellhound.

"Just don't look the head in the eye, Tyson." I called to him as he passed. I wasn't sure if he heard or not, but I hoped he did.

I saw Bob, too. He was running through the monsters, swiping them off their feet with his broom, stabbing them with the spear head, and throwing it at them, knocking them down like dominoes before returning to him like a boomerang.

He dashed by me and I heard him laugh crazily, which scared me as much as it scared the creatures he was fighting.

Damasen stomped through Gaea's troops and crushed them beneath his feet. He squeezed them in his hands and tossed them far away. He was doing fine.

Leo was having the time of his life. He had mounted Festus and was swooping over the horde of ancient creatures. Festus plucked them up and tossed them far away, or shredded them with his teeth or claws. He breathed fire and scorched the monsters on the ground while slicing others.

Leo himself had lit his hands on fire, and held his hands out to the side when Festus flew lower. From the speed they were traveling, Leo's fists pushed any monster it came into contact with off balance and set them on fire. When he wasn't punching them, he pulled random tools out of his belt and threw them at the monsters--hammers, screwdrivers, wrenches, drills, nails, bolts, screws, nuts, mints and other various food items, brushes, paint. Almost everything you would find in a hardware store and more. I killed a few Earthborn who had been splattered with paint and had tools sticking out of their bodies.

I noticed that the majority of the monster dust that had piled up was multi-colored. It seemed that the Party Ponies had brought along their paintball guns, but had somehow found a way to infuse celestial bronze in the paint. It was no doubt Chiron's doing.

I looked around. The golden monster dust was up to our ankles, but barely half of Gaea's army had been killed. I continued to fight, breathing hard and ignoring the pain as best I could. Everyone was fighting their hardest, but we were tiring and there were still dozens upon dozens of monsters left. Percy and his team were in too close a range to use their powers without hurting our side, and had to resort to old fashioned sword fighting. Or--in Thalia, Bianca, and Zoë's case--sitting high up on a mound of junk and laughing crazily while shooting arrows into the unsuspecting enemies' heads.

The sound of the fighting dulled. Monsters and demigods moaned and collapsed, on both sides. They clutched their heads and weeped, dropping their weapons.

A woman appeared and the air grew colder. My heart clenched and all I felt was misery. Absolute misery. Suddenly, the war was over and I was at Camp Half-Blood, standing on Half-Blood Hill. Percy was leaving, and he would never come back. My Seaweed Brain would be gone. He would never think about me, he was going to forget me. I felt like I was going to burst into tears. My heart froze. I froze. I couldn't move. I couldn't feel.

It was only misery. Misery was everywhere. It consumed me and everyone. No one escaped the wave of misery. Demigods and nymphs and satyrs curled up on the ground, sobbing. I had no will to live. Percy was leaving, and the only thing present was misery. I joined them on the ground, shedding thousands of tears.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, and the vision faded. Percy stared into my eyes. "Are you all right?"

I touched my face and found it wet. I had been crying. I surveyed the battlefield and saw the other demigods in the same state as I was. Confused, but recovering.

Percy kept his hand on my shoulder and I looked at the woman who had appeared. Waves of misery flowed off of her, and I realized who she was. Oizys, goddess of misery.

Camp Half-Blood, the war being over, Percy leaving, it was all a hallucination. She had found what would cause me the most misery and forced me to experience it.

I looked back at Percy and nodded. "It's Oizys. The goddess of misery. We have to get rid of her."

"Yeah, definitely."