{Crosscontinental Train, 15th of June 2006}
Percy POV
We'd barely had eight minutes—eight measly minutes!—of peace on this crosscontinental train before everything went sideways. Again. Story of my life.
It started with a woman and her chihuahua. Sounds harmless, right? Wrong. In my world, little old ladies knit socks of death, and chihuahuas... well, let's just say Taco Bell's "Yo quiero Taco Bell" mascot had nothing on this pup.
I was ready to collapse into my seat and let the soft rumbling of the train lull me to sleep. Around us, regular mortals were doing regular mortal things.
A businessman in a crisp suit was tapping away on his laptop, probably crunching numbers that didn't involve the likelihood of being eaten by monsters.
A group of college students were playing cards, which I recognized as Mythomagic, laughing about their weekend plans that definitely didn't include fleeing from mythological creatures, or becoming terrorists, or fixing a rift millenia old, I was getting sidetracked, sorry. An elderly couple was sharing a crossword puzzle, blissfully unaware that their biggest worry wasn't going to be 6-Down, but the chaos that was about to unfold.
That's when I saw her. The woman with the chihuahua was just standing there, eerily reminiscent of the old hags I'd seen knitting those fatal socks. And trust me, she wasn't here for a friendly chat about yarn quality.
Her smile stretched wider than the Cheshire Cat's, revealing teeth that would make a great white shark jealous. Her dog—Sonny, she'd called it—was going ballistic in its cage, yapping like it was auditioning for the canine version of a death metal band.
Swiper and Lailaps, our animal companions and basically the m.v.ps of the quest these past few days, sensed the danger before we did. They started growling softly, their fur standing on end. I could feel the tension in the air, thick enough to cut with Riptide.
"I've been looking for you," the woman purred, her voice making my skin crawl more than when Mrs Dodds used to drag her chalk along the board when doing equations, those damn equations.
Thalia, being Thalia, didn't even flinch. Her electric blue eyes crackled with intensity. "Who are you?" she demanded, voice colder than Mr. D's diet Coke.
The woman's grotesque smile widened. "Tell Odysseus it's his fault," she hissed, her breath smelling like a combo platter of sulfur and week-old fish.
Then, because my life is just that awesome, Sonny the chihuahua decided to go full Hulk. One second it was yappy purse decoration, the next it was the size of a lion, all snarls and snapping jaws. I uncapped Riptide, my trusty pen-sword, hoping it was up for whatever fresh horror show we'd stumbled into.
The transformation didn't go unnoticed by the mortals. The businessman's laptop clattered to the floor as he stumbled back, his eyes wide with confusion. "What in the world?" he muttered, blinking rapidly as if trying to clear his vision.
The college students' card game scattered, forgotten, as they pressed themselves against the windows, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the growing chaos as possible. "Dude, what was in those brownies?" one of them asked, his voice shaking.
The elderly couple clutched each other, their crossword falling to the floor. "Harold, do you see that?" the woman whispered, her voice trembling.
Harold squinted through his thick glasses. "I... I'm not sure what I'm seeing, Margaret."
Of course, thanks to the Mist, they weren't seeing what we were seeing. To them, it probably looked like a malfunctioning animatronic gone rogue, or maybe a very ambitious street performer. Either way, it was enough to send them into a panic.
"Run!" Annabeth yelled, yanking Grover towards the next car.
We tore through the train like it was a giant game of demigod pinball, bouncing from car to car with a chimera-shaped flipper hot on our tails. Behind us, I could hear the screams and shouts of confused mortals, their peaceful journey turned into a scene from a disaster movie.
As we burst into the next car, Swiper and Lailaps sprang into action. They started growing, their bodies swelling to fill the narrow confines of the train car. Swiper, now the size of a small car, lunged for the seats, his powerful jaws ripping them from their bolts.
"What are they doing?" Grover yelped, ducking as a seat cushion flew over his head.
"Buying us time!" Annabeth shouted back, her grey eyes gleaming with understanding.
Lailaps, not to be outdone, had ballooned to the size of an SUV. She turned her attention to the overhead compartments, using her massive paws to tear them open. A rain of suitcases, backpacks, and various travel accessories showered down.
"Hey!" a disgruntled passenger shouted. "That's my—" His complaint was cut short as he caught sight of Lailaps. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, no sound coming out.
Swiper and Lailaps worked in tandem, creating a barricade of seats, luggage, and debris in front of the door we'd just come through. The chimera slammed against it, the impact shaking the entire car, but the makeshift wall held... for now.
"Next car!" I shouted, already moving towards the far end.
We repeated this process through the next two cars, Swiper and Lailaps growing impossibly larger each time, their efforts becoming more frantic. By the third car, they were barely able to move in the confined space, their bodies pressed against the walls and ceiling.
The scene in each car was pure chaos. Passengers were screaming, some trying to call for help on their phones (good luck getting a signal strong enough to report "giant fox and dog destroying train"), others attempting to reason with Swiper and Lailaps as if they were very large, very misbehaving pets.
"Sit! Stay!" one brave (or possibly unhinged) woman commanded, wagging her finger at Lailaps. The magical dog gave her a look that clearly said, "You've got to be kidding me," before returning to her task of fortifying our escape route.
We reached the last car, panting and wide-eyed. Lailaps and Swiper pressed their bulk against the door, but it was already starting to buckle under the chimera's assault. The sounds of destruction from the previous cars grew louder, punctuated by the confused and terrified shouts of mortals.
"What's happening?" "Is this some kind of attack?" "I knew I should have taken the bus!"
"Stand back!" Thalia shouted, her face a mask of determination. She raised her hands, and the air crackled with ozone. A bolt of lightning, bright enough to rival Zeus's master bolt, arced from her fingers to the door. The metal glowed white-hot, then cooled rapidly, effectively welding it shut.
The mortals in our car gasped collectively, their eyes wide with a mixture of awe and terror. I could almost see the Mist working overtime in their minds, trying to rationalize what they'd just witnessed.
"It's... it's some kind of electrical malfunction," one man said uncertainly, as if trying to convince himself.
"Yeah, and I'm the Queen of England," muttered an older woman, clutching her handbag like a lifeline.
"That won't hold them for long," Annabeth said, her grey eyes scanning for an escape route. "We need a plan B."
As if on cue, Thalia blasted a hole in the side of the train with another lightning strike. Wind howled through the gap, whipping our hair into our faces and sending loose papers swirling through the air like the world's most chaotic ticker-tape parade.
The mortals' reactions were immediate and varied. Some screamed, some fainted, and one guy—I kid you not—pulled out his phone and started live-streaming. "You won't believe what's happening on my commute right now," he yelled into his device, his voice barely audible over the wind.
"Everyone out!" Thalia yelled over the chaos. "And for the love of Zeus, roll when you land!"
One by one, we hurled ourselves out of the speeding train, hitting the ground with all the grace of a sack of ambrosia. I tucked and rolled, my body protesting every rotation. When I finally came to a stop, I felt like I'd gone ten rounds with the Minotaur in a washing machine.
I staggered to my feet, my head spinning like I had just spun continuously for a solid minute, which I probably had. That's when I heard it—a roar that made my blood run cold. I turned back towards the train, and immediately wished I hadn't.
There, bursting out of the train like some nightmarish clown car, was not one, but six chimeras. And leading the pack was their proud mama—Echidna, something which I finally realized after a few minutes of fighting, since Ozzy had told me about the time he had faced her when we were eating dinner at the camp fire.
But this wasn't the obese woman we'd seen on the train. Oh no, this woman looked like she had been ripped straight out of Ozzy's story. From the waist up, she was a grotesque parody of a woman, all snarling features and razor-sharp claws. Below that? Two massive snake tails that writhed and hissed with a mind of their own.
Behind them, I could see the chaos we'd left in our wake. Mortals were hanging out of the hole in the train, some shouting for help, others taking pictures with their phones, (seriously, dude?). Great. Even while disguised with the Mist we had ended up trashing another public vehicle.
As Echidna and her chimera brood charged towards us, I did the only thing a seasoned demigod could do in this situation. I turned to my friends, my expression a mix of disbelief and resignation, and eloquently summed up our predicament:
"Oh, shit."
Annabeth sharpened her eyes. "Language, Seaweed Brain!"
"Would you prefer some flowery prose about our imminent doom?" I shot back, raising Riptide.
Thalia's hands crackled with electricity. "Less talking, more fighting!"
As the monsters closed in, I couldn't help but think that this was going to make one hell of a "How I Spent My First Summer Vacation As a Demigod" essay, something Chiron had told me was mandatory the first year a camper got to camp. Assuming, of course, we lived long enough to write it.
The chimeras lunged, their mismatched parts a blur of teeth, claws, and scales. Echidna's snake tails whipped through the air, their eyes gleaming with malice. And just like that, our day went from bad to worse to "someone please tell me this is just a really vivid demigod nightmare."